Carey Mulligan walks on the ‘Wildlife’ side
CANNES, France – There’s one thing Carey Mulligan always does at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Drink too much,” she laughs. Rosé, a drink akin to water around the Palais des Festivals? “No, tequila. I’m such an idiot,” the 32-year-old groans. “You know, I’ve got two kids now, so I never get to do anything.”
Mulligan gave birth to her second child, a boy, last fall. She and her musician husband, Marcus Mumford, also have a 2-year-old daughter, Evelyn. Mulligan was back on the job a few months later and has been working on various projects since.
Mulligan flew in to the South of France this week to premiere Wildlife, a 1950s Montana-set film in which she plays a struggling housewife whose husband (Jake Gyllenhaal) can’t keep a job. The film, told largely from their teen son’s (Ed Oxenbould) anxious perspective, is directed by Paul Dano and co- written by Dano and Zoe Kazan.
“We’ve known each other forever. So it’s so fun to be together — this is so fun, let’s party! And then of course today, it’s all crashing down around me.”
Wildlife premiered out of competition on Wednesday night as part of Critics’ Week, which celebrates directors’ first and second films. The film marks Mulligan’s fourth time at Cannes; she has been here for The Great Gatsby, Inside Llewyn Davis and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
In Wildlife, Mulligan plays Jeanette, a woman who has an affair with an older, more stable car salesman, and she must decide whether she’ll break from an unsatisfying marriage.
“What I identified with most with this character was more to do with that fear of time passing and that feeling of whiplash where you suddenly realize your 20s are gone,” the British actress says.
Another change in this year’s festi- val? Mulligan says she has noticed subtle differences in how women are being treated. In response to the Me Too and Time’s Up movements, Cannes has set up a harassment hotline and is providing child care for mothers.
“It used to drive me mad, how whenever I had my photo taken, they’d say, ‘Now give me a nice smile.’ (Screw) off. I don’t want to give you a nice smile,” she says. “They never ask the boys to do a nice smile.”
In June, she’s packing up the homestead and reviving her one-woman West End show, Girls & Boys, in New York.
The play originally opened in London in February. “I was in pieces by the end. My son was only about 5 months when I went back to work on that, and I was so knackered. ... And doing a monologue is such a weird thing because you have no one to play with. … But the writing is so extraordinary I can’t not do it again.”
Wildlife hits theaters in October.