Steve Pratt chats to Carey Mulligan about returning to being a 16-year-old cellist for the Sixties-set movie, An Education.

WHEN she was 19, Carey Mulligan appeared in a play where she was 14. So playing a 16-year-old schoolgirl in the early Sixties in the film An Education wasn’t too unusual for her.

“I’ve always played parts younger than myself,” she explains after the London Film Festival screening of the movie, which is adapted by Nick Hornby from writer Lynn Barber’s memoir.

“It’s really rare that I play an adult. So, I didn’t worry about that too much. When you put on the school uniform you don’t wear any make-up, you wear your hair a certain way, and you feel very young.

I was around 16-year-old extras. The part was written so well that I kind of understood her as a 16-yearold.”

The role of Jenny is set to boost Mulligan’s profile with not only praise for her performance but of awards and even an Oscar nomination. She doesn’t seem like she intends to let it turn her head. “I’m aware of it in that people talk about it at things like this,” she says.

And yes, she has Googled herself to see what people are saying about her. “it’s horrible because you read one thing and think ‘oh, that’s really nice.’ But then you read the next thing and it’s horrible. So, I thought ‘well that’s that.’ “I don’t do it anymore. I’d never been to a festival before Sundance and I’d never played a lead in a film, and so when it got picked up that was huge.

So, everything since then has been even more huge.

“I don’t wake up in the morning and think ‘what am I going to wear to tonight’s premiere?’ I wake up and think. ‘I can’t remember my lines.’ As long as I get to keep playing interesting parts, that’s the No 1 thing.

Everything else is great because I think it means more people will see the film.”

She’s already moved on to bigger things – a role in Wall Street 2, Oliver Stone’s sequel to his hit. She knows she wouldn’t have got that part without An Education.

“When you do bigger jobs there’s more attention and when you film in New York you get loads of paparazzi everywhere. It affects your work because you’re trying to think about the person you’re acting with and you’ve got 20 other lenses taking pictures of you at the same time, and it throws you,” she says.

What interested her about As Education was it wasn’t a time when there were teenagers – you were either a child or a young adult.

“I like the idea that you went from one to the other and there was no time inbetween to be ridiculous. It was also just not a very interesting time. You’re frustrated enough as a teenager – I certainly was at school – and to have no rebellion and nothing going on must have been that much more frustrating.

“So, it was an interesting place to start and Jenny was an easy victim to get picked up into something quite extraordinary. I also liked the music. The director gave me CDs of music that Jenny would have listened to. I thought the men looked beautiful as well, I wish they still dressed like that.”

Young Carey was quite straight-laced, she says: “I was quite academic until I was about 14 and then I went to boarding school where I became more involved in acting.

“And then when I was applying for universities I used a couple of places on my UCAS form to apply for drama school without telling anyone.

But didn’t get into drama school. That was the most rebellious thing I did and I was still applying to go to higher education, so there wasn’t anything dreadful. So, I was pretty dull really.”

She applied for three drama schools and went to the auditions – and says it’s still the most terrifying experience of her whole life. “When I didn’t get in I was disappointed, but 2,000 people apply for each of these places every year and it’s hugely competitive. I did some awfully pretentious monologue about suicide and I come from a really happy life, so it wasn’t working for me.

“There are things I missed from not having trained. I think I’d be more confident on stage had I gone because I think it means you’re equipped with better vocal training and things like that.

But in general it’s worked out very well and I’ve been really lucky.”

■ An Education (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow.