Gossip Girl of the Week: Carey Mulligan

Updated June 7, 2011

JUST when you thought you couldn't see another actress going insane onstage and find it fresh and surprising, even devastating, along comes young Ms. Carey Mulligan. No wonder The New York Times calls her "almost freakishly talented." And her current director compares her to Vanessa Redgrave.

CURRENT GIG The Atlantic Theater Company production of "Through a Glass Darkly" (above, with Jason Butler Harner as her husband), based on Ingmar Bergman's 1961 film about a young woman, fresh from a mental institution, on a family vacation, hearing voices.

WHAT THE TIMES THOUGHT "We in the audience can only look on . . . in the awe that comes with witnessing the pure, blazing conviction that is a part of both true madness and greatness in art." Ms. Mulligan "more than confirms her promise as one of the finest actresses of her generation." ("Under Pretty Skin, Birdlike Sounds of Madness")

AGE 26.

BORN AND RAISED Born in London. Grew up in Germany, where her father was an InterContinental Hotels executive.

ALMA MATER None. She claims to have been rejected by both RADA and the Central School of Speech and Drama.

AVAILABILITY Single. She has been linked romantically with Shia LaBeouf and Eddie Redmayne.

BEST KNOWN FOR Her Oscar-nominated role as a high school girl in love with an older man in "An Education" (2009).

BROADWAY DEBUT "The Seagull" (2008). She played Nina, the ambitious young actress.

FIRST JOB EVER "Pride and Prejudice" (2005). She played the shy Kitty Bennet.

WEIRD CELEBRITY CONNECTION Her father was delivered by Paul McCartney's mother, who was a midwife in Liverpool.

NEXT BIG THING Playing Daisy Buchanan to Leonardo DiCaprio's Jay Gatsby in Baz Luhrmann's remake of "The Great Gatsby."

CUTE QUOTE "I still have days when I genuinely cannot act. There's a scene in every film which I look back on and think, 'That was the day I couldn' act.' " (In "Never Let Me Go," she says, it's the scene on the beach with Keira Knightley.)*

* "A Modern Movie Star Is Born," Xan Brooks, The Guardian, Jan. 22, 2011

"Through a Glass Darkly," by Jenny Worton, directed by David Leveaux, New York Theater Workshop, 79 East Fourth Street, (212) 279-4200, atlantictheater.org. Opening night: June 6, 2011.

WANT MORE THEATERGOSSIP? Scroll on to read about the 2010-11 Commy Awards winners (one post and an addendum). Then search to read about New York stage notables like Brian Bedford, Laurie Metcalf, Josh Gad, Nicole Kidman, Cherry Jones, Mark Rylance, Lynn Nottage and Edward Albee.