Director Baz Luhrmann has found his Daisy Buchanan for his upcoming adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby in the form of British actress Carey Mulligan. Mulligan will be starring opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and possibly Tobey Maguire who is expected to play Gatsby’s friend, Nick Carraway.
Mulligan beats out a number of actresses who were considered for the part including Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, Amanda Seyfried, Blake Lively, Abbie Cornish, Michelle Williams and Scarlett Johansson.
Deadline broke the story directly from Luhrmann who also passed along the photo on the right, taken of Mulligan during a recent workshopping of the script. Reportedly, the offer was made to Mulligan very shortly after Luhrmann showed her audition tape to Sony studio execs. As Luhrmann told Deadline –
The results from the workshop process on The Great Gatsby have been very encouraging… There are a few elements that I feel need to be resolved before I would categorically state that this is my next film. Regarding the role of Daisy Buchanan, I was privileged to explore the character with some of the world’s most talented actresses, each one bringing their own particular interpretation, all of which were legitimate and exciting. However, specific to this particular production of The Great Gatsby, I was thrilled to pick up the phone an hour ago to the young Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan and say to her: “Hello, Daisy Buchanan.”
Since her nomination for an Academy Award for 2009’s An Education, the 25-year-old Mulligan has been one of the more sought after actresses has been entertaining a number of high profile projects. She has recently starred in Public Enemies, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Mark Romanek’s thriller Never Let Me Go and is attached to a potential remake of My Fair Lady.
