Carey Mulligan Reveals What Keira Knightley Taught Her About Being a Leading Actress on Set

Carey Mulligan is on the cover of W magazine’s Volume 6, 2018 cover story.

Here’s what the 33-year-old actress had to share with the mag…

On why she chooses the roles she chooses: “You do something well and people want you to just repeat that thing over and over. After An Education, I got a lot of offers to play quirky girls going through big life changes, and I didn’t want to do that. Suffragette was quite message-y, and I don’t really want to be in message movies anymore. It’s really just not wanting to take on things I could competently do without much work. It doesn’t seem worth it.”

On what she learned from Keira Knightley when they worked together early in her career: “Keira had been in Pirates of the Caribbean, and she was unbelievably famous. I didn’t need to put this into practice until years later, but she was the model of how to be a leading actress on set. She was brilliant, but she was also so kind and so sweet, and it sort of removed the possibility in the future of there being any excuse for being anything but lovely. I was watching people not only to learn how to act, but also to learn how to be. I did that for years.”

On if her daughter wanted to be an artist: “It’s just so unpredictable and risky. I get it now. If my daughter sings a song in tune, I think, Oh, no! I keep putting a stethoscope around her neck.”

For more from Carey, visit WMagazine.com.