Carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman could be her best performance yet

Postponed due to the pandemic, this low-budget film shot in just 23 days is finally coming to cinemas. In it Carey Mulligan reveals her dark side.

In the beforetimes, by which I mean early March, Carey Mulligan and Emerald Fennell sat curled up, side-by-side on a squishy hotel couch in London, chatting with the unstudied ease of two very good friends having a nice long catch-up.

Almost a year after it premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, their movie Promising Young Woman will finally be in cinemas on January 7.

Promising Young Woman is a one-of-a-kind film, searing and sympathetic and shocking, written and directed by Fennell and produced by Margot Robbie. It’s Fennell’s debut feature having penned season two of Killing Eve and acted in various projects, including The Crown as Camilla Parker Bowles.

Mulligan plays Cassie, a woman seeking vengeance after the assault of her best friend, in one of the best performances of the actor’s career.

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Carey Mulligan stars as Cassandra in director Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman Picture: Merie Weismiller Wallace/Courtesy of Focus Features.

Through Mulligan, Cassie is a raging tornado viewed from afar – at first glance, all seems well, but look closer and you’ll see the full gamut of emotion stretched across Cassie’s face. She’s cunning, she’s committed, she’s hurt, she’s desperate but above all, she’s angry. And by god, she’s going to do something about it.

“Everyone in her life has said move on,” Fennell explains, “and what makes her such an inflammatory presence is that she’s doing the thing that we’ve all been told not to do, which is to say I’m not letting this go. I’m not ever, ever letting this go.”

It’s a one-of-a-kind film not only because of this fascinating character study, but because Fennell has written and directed a female-led revenge thriller that contrasts its darkness with moments of black – very black – comedy, balancing it all on the edge of a very sharp knife. “This is the only film I’ve ever been in that has a blooper reel,” Mulligan says, laughing. “And I’m so excited. I got sent the blooper reel and I almost cried. I’ve been in something that’s fun enough to have a blooper reel!”

“There’s no blooper reel in Mudbound,” jokes Fennel.

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Actor Carey Mulligan, writer and director Emerald Fennell, actor Laverne Cox, and actor Bo Burnham on the set of Promising Young Woman. Picture: Merie Weismiller Wallace/Focus Features

There’s a clear connection between director and star, forged during the incredibly brief production – just 23 days long, “The shortest film shoot I’ve ever been on,” Mulligan says – and the tricky subject matter.

“When you’re making something low budget with very little time, and a lot of it is quite difficult, you really have to be an incredibly trusting unit and everyone has to look after each other.”

Many of the film’s cameo actors, including Alfred Molina, Connie Britton and Adam Brody were only on set for a day, which made for a convivial, come-one-come-all atmosphere. Brody playing one of those ‘good guys’ you meet at the club late at night in an absolutely genius stroke of casting.

“There were extraordinary actors coming in for one day, and they were delightful and so much fun,” Mulligan says. “Really present in the moment and doing brilliant work, but then also could have a lovely chat and a cup of coffee.”

One of the film’s main supporting characters is Bo Burnham, YouTube breakout and director of the stellar independent film Eighth Grade, who plays a very sweet and earnest doctor who crosses Cassie’s path – the kind of guy you can’t believe exists on a dating app.

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Carey Mulligan and Bo Burnham in Promising Young Woman.

“Bo felt like he was in a rom-com,” Mulligan says, laughing. “He would come in like [singsong] ‘da da da’, lovely, pizza and kissing … It was like a completely different film.”

It was exactly that duality, that rollercoaster tone and biting wit, that drew Mulligan in initially.

“The script was so spellbinding and I was so blown away,” she says, and then she received a playlist from Fennell, featuring tracks that she felt perfectly summed up the mood of the whole thing. “Toxic was on there twice,” Mulligan recalls, “and I was like ‘Ahhhh.’” (“As it should be! On every album,” interjects Fennell.)

The music helped Mulligan get into the headspace of this inimitable character, which was when the actor realised she didn’t want to miss out on the role. “I would have been so devastated, which is always an indicator for me that I’m desperate to do something,” Mulligan says.

By the time she was on set, she had listened to Fennell’s playlist countless times, and continued listening to it every day on the way to work. She was listening to it while filming one of the movie’s pivotal scenes, when Cassie – frustrated, furious, at the end of her tether, her fuse – takes a wrench to the windscreen of a car. “Smashy-smashy,” Mulligan deadpans.

A vengeful Cassie (Carey Mulligan) goes looking for revenge after her best friend is assaulted. Picture: Merie Weismiller Wallace/Focus Features

Given the incendiary nature of the subject matter, and the shocking twists and turns that the film takes – particularly in the final act – it can be easy to forget that the core of the film is rooted in love, not hate.

Cassie is entirely motivated by love for her best friend Nina and a sense of injustice about what happened to her. It’s why she’ll never stop on her revenge mission. She’s blown up her life, sacrificed her medical studies, isolated herself from friends and family, and is willing to take this to the furthest edges of the Earth because she needs to see this through. For Nina, not for herself.

“You don’t do this to your life, you don’t do what Cassie does – the real reason isn’t hatred, it’s love,” says Mulligan. “A lot of the work was to think about what motivated [her] and it had to come from a place of love. What was so great, that when she lost it her life would never be the same again? And it was that friendship, that sisterhood that felt like family, and when it was gone it was a gaping hole that couldn’t be filled.”

Friendship is important to Mulligan. She grew up in Germany, where her father worked as a hotel manager, before relocating to England, and her friendship group – small, but tightly held – is a reflection of that. Every year, she gets together with her closest childhood pals and the group celebrates their birthdays together.

“At work, it’s wonderful to find people that you know you want to tell stories with and that see the world, a little bit, in the same way that you do. And that’s what I really found with Emerald,” Mulligan says. “When you have that collaboration with another woman, and that’s someone who inspires me, makes me want to do my best work, challenges me – that’s really something to hold on to.”

Promising Young Woman is in cinemas from January 7.