Carey Mulligan

Mulligan was born in Westminster, London, England. Her father, Stephen, was originally from Liverpool, and her mother, Nano (née Booth), a college lecturer, came from Llandeilo in West Wales. Her great-grandfather emigrated from Ireland. Mulligan has one sibling; an elder brother. At the age of 3, Mulligan moved with her family from England to Germany after her father accepted the job of managing the European arm of Intercontinental Hotels. Due to her father's job, her family lived in expensive hotels for 8 years.

Mulligan stated that during her childhood she was "quite shy", and that, until the age of 15, she had been a tomboy. She was very academic until 14, having then become more interested in acting. Mulligan said her interest in acting sparked from watching her brother perform in a school production of The King and I and would later participate in many plays at her school. Since age 14, her mother would take her to Broadway plays in New York, which made her develop an interest in theatre.

Before she began acting professionally, she had once secretly applied to and been rejected by three drama schools. After failing yet another audition, the rejections made Mulligan question whether to pursue an acting career, and she went through what she called a "confusing time". It was also due to her parents disapproval of pursuing a career in entertainment, remarking that her parents were insisting she attend university. Around this time, she had a brief job as a barmaid at a local pub.She later said those negative experiences had a positive effect on her because it made her know how much she wanted to act. While filming a project in New York in 2009, she began considering going to acting school, preferably Juilliard located there, but that the decision was still pending. Mulligan said that if she ever does go to university, she would choose to study psychology to have a greater understanding of Alzheimer's, a disease that her grandmother suffers from.

Her credits include the film Pride & Prejudice (2005) and the 2005 BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel "Bleak House" (2005). She currently resides in Covent Garden, England.

She got her first major appearance by playing "Kitty Bennet" in Pride & Prejudice (2005) alongside Keira Knightley, Judi Dench and Donald Sutherland. Carey also played orphan "Ada Clare" in the BBC television series, "Bleak House" (2005).

Carey has said that her passion and love for acting was first kindled at her old school Woldingham School, where she took part in a school production of "Sweet Charity" in her final year, and where she was also a student head of drama.

Mulligan dated actor and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps co-star Shia LaBeouf from 2009-2010. In the succeeding months, the actress was linked to actors Tom Sturridge and Eddie Redmayne. Mulligan is now reportedly dating Mumford & Sons lead singer Marcus Mumford.

Mulligan said that skiing is her favourite pastime, but she chose to practice the sport less in fear of losing an acting job because of an injury. Although she attended Catholic school, she considers herself spiritual. Her religious schooling showed the already skeptical Mulligan that Catholicism was too strict. Mulligan took part in the Safe Project by being photographed by Nick Haddow in the places they feel the safest, for a series to be auctioned off to raise awareness of sex trafficking.