Sucker Punch

Some might say journalists aren’t interesting in films – and Carey Mulligan would fight you on that. As New York Times reporter Megan Twohey in She Said, the British actor is cementing what she’s been working towards for years: a career defined by conflict, spiky, powerful, bruising and ultimately rewarding. Ella Kemp looks back on the hits.

Every month we'll be teaming up with IMDb to bring you a guide to the work of some of your favourite stars, whether that's behind or in front of the camera. This month, a look at the simmering force that is Carey Mulligan.

There is no Carey Mulligan without conflict. The British actor, who has been on stage and screen for the last 20 years, never disrespects those she meets, per se, but all of her best roles are defined by a feeling that things aren’t as they should be. Worried sister, distant lover, unhappy mother, furious best friend, and now stubborn journalist: she’s played them all. 

The conflict in Mulligan’s most striking performances also often comes from the way the performer can seem to contradict herself. The way she makes such a mark with so little dialogue in the likes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s 2011 film Drive, or that she can’t quite stop talking until it’s a matter of life or death in Promising Young Woman. 

Ahead of her most focused role to date, as New York Times journalist Megan Twohey in She Said, we look back on Carey Mulligan’s greatest moments of conflict from throughout her career. 

Drive (2011)

So much of Nicolas Winding Refn’s thriller closely follows Ryan Gosling’s unnamed stunt driver by day and getaway driver by night, but Mulligan, as the driver’s neighbour Irene, shines in one of the most devastating scenes in the film. 

As Irene and the driver spend more time together and she slowly tries to trust him (her husband, Oscar Isaac’s Standard, has just been released from prison), one incident in an elevator blows it for everyone. The driver pummels one of the men he’s been chasing and been chased by, while Irene cowers further into the corner. 

It’s a huge display of silent terror from Mulligan, who does so much with the role of a bystander in a horrific moment of violence that should have given Irene and the driver another occasion to find refuge and a quiet moment of solace in each other, in this elevator. But Mulligan’s haunting performance makes it unforgettable.

Shame (2011) 

As Brandon Sullivan’s (Michael Fassbender) volatile sister Sissy, Mulligan leans into her more unpredictable side – erratic conversations, stupid decisions, useless company, Sissy is a force unto herself. Except in a moment of bracing calm, where she gently sings ‘New York, New York’ in a bar, out of the blue, and stuns the room into silence. 

It doesn’t necessarily change who Sissy is, who she was or what comes next, but in that spellbinding moment of quiet and beauty, Mulligan pulls the rug from under us once more – it might not make sense but she’ll make it so. 

Wildlife (2018)

Happy wife, happy life, is that it? The conflict in Wildlife, that of a suburban husband and wife who just aren’t happy anymore, might look relatively familiar, but Mulligan plays it with a bitterness you can taste.

Paul Dano’s directorial debut frames Jeannette and Jerry Brinson (Jake Gyllenhaal, wiry and vulnerable opposite Mulligan’s Jeannette) at a crossroads, as the looming hills of the Great Falls of Montana threaten to swallow them whole if something doesn’t change. 

Mulligan has a soft touch with her son, Joe (Ed Oxenbould) which is what makes her internal battle to find what really makes her happy, what makes her herself so overwhelming to watch. She’s childish and reckless before she pulls it in and acts with so much intimidation that you fear this could veer into a very different genre. A tour-de-force. 

Promising Young Woman (2020)

Margot Robbie, one of Promising Young Woman’s producers, recently said she refused to star in the film because it wouldn’t be surprising, and that’s exactly why she knew Carey Mulligan would be perfect for it. It’s true – Mulligan has often shown strength and resistance, but writer-director Emerald Fennell gives her character Cassie a sugary-sweet veneer that’s disarming in its intensity. 

Revenge is the conflict at the heart of Promising Young Woman, and even that never plays out the way it seems.  The film would not have worked in the hands of somebody less experienced, less hardened and emboldened by the film industry to remain polite and terse when required but to act, furiously, when there’s no other option. 

She Said (2022)

It’s worth highlighting just how much conflict Mulligan deals with in She Said, a film that could very easily be brushed off as Hollywood inside-baseball that in fact spotlights working mothers and tired women in ways that can and should ripple across every industry and corner of life. 

As Twohey, Mulligan is rigorous and precise in investigating the decades of sexual harassment, misconduct and abuse from Harvey Weinstein, but she is also thoughtful and reserved alongside Zoe Kazan’s younger and newer New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor. 

It’s the work of an actor in her prime, never resorting to melodrama or sensationalism to affect viewers with the severity and the risk of the situation in the way she does. Mulligan doesn’t break a sweat, but nor does she minimise just how monumental the job of her character is. She welcomes conflict like an old friend.

She Said is in UK cinemas from November 25.