Q&A: CAREY MULLIGAN

The Gatsby star nabs another coveted role in Far from the Madding Crowd

Brit actress Carey Mulligan was 24 when she hit the A-list, picking up an Oscar nomination for An Education. Then she stole the coveted role of Daisy Buchanan in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby from just about every actress in LA. Now 29, she’s the lead in Thomas Vinterberg’s radical Thomas Hardy adaptation, Far from the Madding Crowd, screening at Sydney Film Festival.

Carey, how did you feel about donning a corset again? I did lots of costume dramas in my early twenties. I felt slightly nervous about doing more after that because I didn’t want to get pigeonholed as a “British” actress. I just loved that there was a story set in Victorian Britain about a woman who rejects a proposal in the first 20 pages. She doesn’t start off looking for a man to marry. It was amazing that Hardy wrote such a complex, interesting, fully fleshed out character who was so ahead of her time.

You own a farm in Devon with your husband Marcus Mumford. Are you a proper Hardy-style Wessex girl? Can you milk a cow? I did brush up on my horseriding for the film. My mother’s side is Welsh and I grew up around animals, and, yep: I’ve milked the odd cow.

When you were a teenage hopeful you wrote to various industry bigwigs including Kenneth Branagh, asking him to be your mentor. Yep, I’m still chronically embarrassed by that!

Now that you’ve made it, do you return the favour and reply to the wannabe actresses who write to you? I do, I do! I write back. But not to all of them. There’s an interesting thing that people confuse being an actress with being famous. I do try to respond to those letters I receive when I feel there’s somebody who’s really interested in being an actress. It’s pretty clear the ones who just want to be famous, and those ones I don’t write back to. Caroline McGinn

Far from the Madding Crowd Cremorne, Wed Jun 3, 6.30pm; Event Cinemas George St, Sat Jun 13, 1.30pm. Opens in cinemas Thu Jun 25.