Celebrity3 min(s) read
Published 17:11 27 Jan 2021 GMT
Carey Mulligan called out a film review in which the writer said the 35-year-old actor looked like she was in "bad drag" while portraying the movie's protagonist and that the lead actor should have been Margot Robbie.
In a review of Promising Young Woman published by Variety, freelance critic Dennis Harvey refers to Mulligan as a "fine actress" before going on to explain why she wasn't right for the role.
He wrote:
"Mulligan, a fine actress, seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale — Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her.
"Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on. The flat American accent she delivers in her lowest voice register likewise seems a bit meta, though it’s not quite clear what the quote marks around this performance signify."
Speaking with The New York Times in December, Mulligan said she "winced" while reading Harvey's review of her performance.
“I read the Variety review because I’m a weak person,” Mulligan said. “And I took issue with it. It felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.”
According to The Times, at the time of the interview, Mulligan could still recite some of the lines from the review.
“It wasn’t some sort of ego-wounding thing - like, I fully can see that Margot Robbie is a goddess,” she said.
What bothered The Great Gatsby actress most was that people might read the scrutiny of her physical appearance and accept that it as a valid piece of critique.
“It drove me so crazy. I was like, ‘Really? For this film, you’re going to write something that is so transparent? Now? In 2020?’ I just couldn’t believe it.”
“We don’t allow women to look normal anymore, or like a real person,” Mulligan continued. “Why does every woman who’s ever onscreen have to look like a supermodel?”
“That has shifted into something where the expectation of beauty and perfection onscreen has gotten completely out of control.”
The review now comes with an editor's note that reads: “Variety sincerely apologizes to Carey Mulligan and regrets the insensitive language and insinuation in our review of Promising Young Woman that minimized her daring performance.”
Mulligan even did an interview with Variety about the review it published about her performance:
“I feel it’s important that criticism is constructive. I think it’s important that we are looking at the right things when it comes to work, and we’re looking at the art and we’re looking at the performance.
“And I don’t think that goes to the appearance of the actor or your personal preference for what an actor does or doesn’t look like – which it felt that that article did. Which for me felt disappointing, because obviously the film is tackling issues around our perceptions and our preconceived ideas about people.”
