Carey Mulligan: film industry is 'massively sexist'

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/apr/22/carey-mulligan-film-industry-is-massively-sexist-far-from-the-madding-crowd

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Carey Mulligan has argued that the film industry is still hugely unequal, saying: “In terms of the amount of interesting roles there are for women it’s obviously massively sexist.”

In the Time Out interview she added: “There’s a lack of material for women. A lack of great stories for women.”

Related: Far From the Madding Crowd review: Carey Mulligan shines in Hardy perennial

Mulligan has taken on a series of strong leading roles, from her breakthrough as a schoolgirl being romanced by an older man in An Education, to her damaged singer in Shame, and Daisy in Baz Luhrmann’s take on The Great Gatsby. She can soon be seen in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd, and will appear later this year in Suffragette, about the fight for women’s voting rights in the early 20th century – it also features Meryl Streep playing Emmeline Pankhurst, and is written by Abi Morgan, who wrote The Iron Lady and the aforementioned Shame.

“The mere fact that it’s taken 100 years for this story to be told is hugely revealing,” Mulligan said. “This is the story of equal rights in Britain, and it took years of struggle and women being tortured, abused and persecuted, and it’s never been put on-screen. It’s such a reflection of our film industry that that story hasn’t been told yet.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Mulligan praised the “ask her more” campaign around this year’s Oscars, which encouraged interviewers to go beyond questions about the actors’ dresses and jewellery, and said of Far from the Madding Crowd: “I just loved that there was a story set in Victorian Britain about a woman who rejects a proposal in the first 20 pages. She doesn’t start off looking for a man to marry. It was amazing that he wrote such a complex, interesting, fully fleshed out character who was so ahead of her time.”

Mulligan also celebrated Streep as “using her power in the industry in a really positive way. She’s wanted to make a film about women’s rights for a long time.” As well as championing women on screen, this week Streep launched a mentorship program for female screenwriters over the age of 40.