Carey Mulligan It's an honour to portray such strong women

Having taken a break to raise her children, Carey Mulligan is back at her finest on both the big and small screen. Never one to take the more fickle side of her industry too seriously, the actress is as warm and sincere as ever, as Psychologies discovers.

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Radiant and ethereally beautiful, Carey Mulligan has enchanted the public ever since she received an Oscar-nomination for her performance in An Education, which turned her into an instant star. Yet the 32-year-old confesses she spent much of her twenties struggling to be as self-assured and forceful as she would have liked.

She even wondered whether her screen performances were as good as the critics professed, but after scoring a massive victory on the New York stage in David Hare’s Skylight – opposite Bill Nighy – coupled with rave reviews for her work in Thomas Vinterberg’s screen adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd, and a blazing performance in Suffragette, surely even Mulligan couldn’t doubt her exceptional talent?

‘I feel much more sure of myself,’ Mulligan says. ‘I was very reticent when I was younger, but now I have greater confidence in my work, and I’m better at getting my view across when I’m speaking to directors. I used to be so shy that it made it really difficult for me to enjoy whatever success I had, but now everything seems fabulous and promising. Although, there are still times when I have to pinch myself, just to make sure that it isn’t a dream!’

Mulligan has recently taken time out to focus on her family – husband Marcus Mumford, two-year-old daughter Evelyn, and their newest arrival born in September, of whom neither name nor gender has been revealed.