Do you need another reason to love Carey Mulligan? Or, more argue-power behind why she should headline My Fair Lady if it ever comes to be?

In the last few years Carey Mulligan has exploded from one of the girls from Pride & Prejudice, and a guest actress in Doctor Who’s popular “Blink,” to the Oscar-nominated actress from An Education, and name from the likes of Public Enemies and Brothers, plus the upcoming Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Never Let Me Go, Drive, and On Chesil Beach.

Just to continue the ever-brightening spotlight, Mulligan has grabbed the mic to sing with Belle & Sebastian in their new single, “Write About Love,” from their CD of the same name.

BBC America spotted the song, a ’60s-ish pop tune that her educated Jenny would’ve loved. It’s spunky and pretty darned addictive. Though it details a girl stuck in a crappy day job who escapes to the roof, looks over the city, and wants to write about love and “see the dream through the windows and the trees of your living room,” let’s hope Mulligan sticks with her big-screen work … at least until she headlines as a pop princess on the big screen.

The song, which you can download for free right here (and should, because it’s pretty great), definitely proves Mulligan’s singing talents, although it also makes me wish that if My Fair Lady gets cooking again, it could be a modern or ’60s retro pop version with new songs. Lady isn’t the original story anyway — it’s ripped from Pygmalion — so one can dream.

Should Mulligan be My Fair Lady? Is there another singer she should play? Stevie Nicks might be a little off her range, but maybe … The Go-Go’s? It’s not the best cinematic story, but I’d love to see Mulligan, and maybe Zooey Deschanel, partake in some pop frolicking. Do you have any better ideas?

Don’t think Glee. It seems she told Vogue that she wants to pop by the popular show, “but I’m told I’m not famous enough to be a cameo.”

I just found HQ outtakes of Carey’s Vogue photoshoot including some new ones:

• [x012] Photoshoot in 2010 – Session 035: Vogue

Carey Mulligan’s October Vogue cover appears totally polished but behind-the-scenes it was anything but. The actress revealed to Express.co.uk that all of the clothes were sample sizes straight from Paris, so “the cover dress was very pretty but wouldn’t go over my arse. Sample size is very, very tiny. I’m actually wearing a towel around my waist and the bottom is clipped up because I couldn’t fit.”

According to the Daily Mail, Mulligan once went down to 112 pounds, recalling, “my brain doesn’t work when I’m that thin, so I can’t do my job.” She told the Mail, “That’s why, when I came out here, I never had that whole Hollywood pressure thing. I never said I wanted to be a lead actress; I never said I wanted to be a film actress.”

A couple weeks ago it was announced that Carey Mulligan was in negotiations to star in the action film Drive alongside Ryan Gosling and Bryan Cranston. At the time, the film was said to center on “a nameless Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a freelance getaway driver but ends up on the run with a contract on his head and an ex-con’s girlfriend.” I recently spoke to Mulligan about her part in the film and she elaborated more on her character and revealed that she’s not just playing “a girlfriend.”

Mulligan is a dynamo when it comes to drama. Her performance in An Education proved that, but she’s taking a step outside of her comfort zone with Drive. While out promoting her new film Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps she spoke about doing more American movies and easing her way into the action genre. Here’s what she had to say about Drive…

Carey Mulligan: It starts shooting at the end of the month. It’s also American, it’s set in Echo Park [Los Angeles] and it’s sort of an action-thriller kind of thing. I will run away from things happening to me. I’m not yet going to put on leather and shoot people, but I’m gunning for that.

She also spoke about the amazing cast that will be joining her and gave some specifics regarding her character.

Carey Mulligan: I’m doing that with Ryan Gosling. I’m excited. The rest of the cast is crazy, Albert Brooks is doing it. Oscar Isaacs is playing my husband.

Did you read that correctly? She’s not playing a girlfriend, she’s playing a wife! Oscar Isaacs‘ performance was one of the few bright spots in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood. He played the young, Prince John. As for the rest of the actors, Variety is reporting that “Mad Men” star Christina Hendricks has also signed on for an unspecified role. The cast of Drive is really starting to shape up!

Carey Mulligan is the first to admit that her latest film, the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, was a role very close to her heart, having fallen in love with the novel before a film was even planned.

Nominated for an Oscar last year for her performance in An Education, 25-year-old Mulligan is quickly developing an impressive resume. She sat down with Metro to discuss the themes of the novel, playing a part she never thought she’d get and ignoring the noise of awards season.

Were you a fan of the book before auditioning?
Yes. My mum was a big Ishiguro fan, and I read it immediately after her. I loved it, and didn’t really think it was a part I could get because of all the usual reasons. So when it came around, to get to audition for it was huge for me. It was sort of the biggest part I’d auditioned for — and kind of the best phone call I’d ever had when I got the job.

How have promotions for the film been going?
I really like talking about it. I loved the book so much. I like that it’s sort of divisive in a way, and I like answering that “Why don’t they run away?” question. The world is so interesting, it’s kind of fun to analyze it. Because there are no real answers to those questions.

So why do you think the characters don’t run away?
I don’t see any reason why they would, having kind of briefly lived in that world. You know, they’re brought up to believe if they leave the confines of their school, it’s certain death. There’s nothing out there that’s better than what they have, in their minds. The people that they grow up with are their only family and the only people that they know. And also they have a sense of duty. They’re brought up believing they’re special and that this is the purpose of their lives.

How was it bringing to life a character you loved so much already?
I loved it. My agent said to me a while ago, you should only ever play the parts that you can’t bear the idea of anyone else playing, and I think that’s how I felt about Kathy. I thought, “No one else could play her.” I mean, I’m sure they can. They can do it brilliantly — better than I can — but they shouldn’t be allowed to. I should play it. I’d never really played this character who let other people speak before she did and allowed other people to feel more. It was sort of like that feeling of being in a funeral of somebody who has died but you’re not the family, so you can’t cry. Like it’s not my place to be upset.

We’re heading into awards season again soon. How is living in that world so early in your career?
It sort of feels like that’s somehow always the ultimate goal, and for me that’s not the ultimate goal. It’s sort of like the only merit you can have as a film is if you win an award, and I think the merit you have with the film is if you take a book that people love and you make a film that’s faithful to that book and doesn’t hurt the book and tell a story that moves people in whatever way. And so the awards stuff, with An Education, it was completely out of left field. And with this, it’s not a consideration. I just have huge fears about fans of the book not appreciating the film, because I wouldn’t want to ever disappoint people who love the book.

At 25, Carey Mulligan is poised between two worlds–indie star and rising A-lister.

She was so amazing in An Education she collected fourteen awards and twelve nominations, including one for the Oscar as Best Actress. So it should come as no surprise that Anna Wintour picked her to be Vogue magazine’s October cover girl.

Dressed in the season’s hottest couture gowns, Carey, who is dating her ‘Wall Street’ co-star Shia LaBeouf, tells the magazine why she wants to be on Glee, why she’ll never get scary skinny and where she draws inspiration from. Here are some highlights from the article:

• [x006] Photoshoots in 2010 – Session 035: Vogue

(Video and full article under the cut)

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Carey Mulligan is in talks to star opposite Ryan Gosling in action-thriller Drive.

The Oscar-nominated An Education actress will play a woman who ends up on the run with a Hollywood stuntman-turned-getaway driver after a bank heist goes wrong.

Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston is also closing in on a role in the Universal project.

Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson) will direct Drive based on James Sallis’s novel.

The chances are you are not watching a film from a major Hollywood studio when the main subject is grief. Peter Jackson got away with The Lovely Bones because he is, well, Peter Jackson. Otherwise, you’ll rarely see a real tragedy gracing your local multiplex. That doesn’t mean such films should be ignored. Grief-ridden stories allow actors and directors to give their skills an emotionally wrenching workout. When the results are as good as The Greatest, you should be watching it.

Like The Lovely Bones, The Greatest deals with a family adjusting to the loss of one of its junior members. In both cases the late, lamented children are teenagers but in The Greatest the victim is not a girl with the same name as a fish but a boy whose moniker celebrates singer Tony Bennett. Also, the boy (Bennett, in case you’re wondering) dies in a car accident rather than a brutal murder. Nonetheless, the subsequent events extend from the same natural result. The remaining family members – the deceased’s mom and dad (here played by Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan) and younger brother, Ryan (Johnny Simmons) – are understandably distraught. The males live in denial for some time but familial relations becomes fractious. Things are not made easier when Rose, the girlfriend they didn’t know Bennett had (played by An Education‘s Carey Mulligan), turns up on the doorstep saying that she has to move in with them.

What is different about The Greatest is that it doesn’t take the same obvious story telling route that made the novel of ‘The Lovely Bones’ an unsurprising slog. Rather than have the family fall apart, first-time director Shana Feste’s script keeps them together, albeit in dysfunctional form. Neither parent feels the need to seek solace in an affair (he’s already had one and is trying to be the family’s pillar of strength; she’s just not interested) and Ryan takes tentative steps towards escaping his loser life of drugs and solitude.
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British actress Carey Mulligan has lost out on a movie role that would have made her a mega-bucks earner.

The 25-year-old actress auditioned for part of Lisbeth Salander in the Hollywood version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo along with 007 star Daniel Craig.

I’m told Carey apparently failed to impress director David Fincher.

‘She just didn’t fit the part,’ says my source.

‘David is casting again – only this time the actresses will have full hair, make-up, wardrobe, and piercings, which wasn’t done in the earlier tests.’

‘David thought Carey was too clean-cut and is looking for someone a little more gritty.’

Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley’s new film Never Let Me Go will launch this year’s BFI London Film Festival on 13 October.

The drama, directed by Mark Romanek, tells the tale of former boarding school pupils who confront their sheltered pasts. It co-stars new Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield and is based on the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The full festival programme will be announced on 8 September.

Never Let Me Go was adapted for the screen by Alex Garland – previously known for his novels The Beach and The Tesseract, and his screenplays for Danny Boyle’s films Sunshine and 28 Days Later.

Its main characters Kathy (Mulligan), Tommy (Garfield) and Ruth (Knightley) spend their childhood at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic English boarding school, where they discover a dark secret about their future.

The stars of the film are expected to attend the opening night screening, which will be the film’s European premiere.

Sandra Hebron, the festival’s artistic director, said Never Let Me Go combined “impeccable film making, outstanding performances and a deeply moving story”.

Director Mark Romanek added: “I think I can speak for the entire cast and crew when I say that we are deeply honoured and excited to have been selected to open this year’s festival.

The film will be released in the UK on 14 January, 2011.
The London Film Festival runs from 13-28 October, 2010.

Carey Mulligan

Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan, who starred in “An Education,” embodies a look that Vanity Fair calls “existential pixie.” She poses during the 63rd Cannes Film Festival wearing a Roland Mouret “Pazeau” dress with a black double-looped belt. (Ian Langsdon / EPA)