Carey Mulligan trusted "her gut" when she agreed to star in ‘Wildlife’.
The 33-year-old actress plays a woman stuck in an unhappy marriage in the adaptation of the Richard Ford novel of the same name, and director Paul Dano revealed she only accepted the part after they had afternoon tea in New York.
The filmmaker told the Daily Mail newspaper: "She called back the next morning, probably not 12 hours later. She trusts her instincts and her gut."
The drama film is Dano’s directorial debut, and it tells the story of a couple whose marriage falls apart.
Recalling his meeting with the actress, Dano said: "Carey has such a great facility for language – probably comes from doing theatre – and as she’s talking, I realise the words sound so good in her mouth.
"I stood there thinking: ‘Yes, I have a movie!’"
Carey has been performing since the age of six and has always considered acting to be her "thing".
The acclaimed star said: "I never did any professional acting while I was at school, but acting was just my thing and I tried to do every extracurricular version of it.
"I was s**t at sport. I mean, I was enthusiastic, but I was useless."
Carey also insisted she’s not interested in roles that don’t challenge her.
She said: "If I read a role and think: ‘I could probably do it quite easily’ then I don’t bother. Because unless it’s really hard and quite scary, there’s no point in doing it."