Taking care of Carey

Five years ago, many red-blooded Doctor Who fans were clamouring for actress Carey Mulligan to become the Doctor’s next companion after she almost single-handedly carried the episode Blink. It was not to be. Freema Agyeman was replaced by Catherine Tate and Carey’s character, Sally Sparrow, became but a birdcall in the garden of fond memories! Miss Mulligan has, of course, gone on to bigger things, though not necessarily greater. It’s unlikely we’ll ever see her back in Doctor Who, even though its current show-runner, Steven Moffat, created her character in a short story for an annual before embellishing it into a full-blown television episode.

I first noticed Carey in 2005, two years before her appearance in Series Three of Doctor Who, when she took on the role of Ada Clare, one of the wards in the court case of Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce, in Andrew Davies’ excellent BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House. I thought her extraordinarily pretty but predicted Anna Maxwell Martin, who played another of the wards, Esther Summerson, would go on to be the more successful of the two female leads. I was wrong, possibly. Their stories aren’t over yet and it depends how you define success. Anna’s worked solidly in this country while Carey has tried her hand at working in Hollywood. America suits some better than others. It may mean bigger bucks but the jobs aren’t necessarily as satisfying.

Carey Mulligan’s portrayal of the gifted-but-emotionally-impressionable Jenny, in the BBC-funded An Education, was the breakthrough role which brought her to the attention of American producers such as Oliver Stone. It wasn’t long before she found herself starring opposite Michael Douglas, playing his daughter of all things, in the Wall Street sequel Money Never Sleeps. I know the tagline of the original was “greed is good” but surely Catherine Zeta Jones must be handful enough?! The image above shows Carey on the set of neo-noir road movie Drive, wearing shades - I suspect - not to look cool but to hide tired eyes from the glare of paparazzi! Should you want to see her naked, and I know you all hanker after nothing else, look no further than Steve McQueen’s tale of sex-addiction, Shame, in which she plays Michael Fassbender’s saucy sister Sissy. To be fair, there’s much more to this psychological drama than Mulligan’s mammaries, as gratifying as it may be to finally catch a glimpse!

If you can’t get enough of her loving (and who can?), Carey Hannah can also be seen, brassiere intact, opposite the likes of Jim Broadbent and Colin Firth in And When Did You Last See Your Father?; as Kitty Bennet in the film version of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, alongside Keira Knightley, Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland; and in an ITV1 adaptation of Northanger Abbey as Isabella Thorpe. To bring her story smack-bang up to date, she has just finished working with Titanic heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and Romeo + Juliet director Baz Luhrmann on a remake of The Great Gatsby, due out on Christmas Day, playing the role Mia Farrow brought to life in the 1974 film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, the superficial Daisy Buchanan. Give me your answer, do!