Carey Mulligan Talks 'Shame,' Ditching Good Girl Image with W Magazine

One of the most hyped movies of the season is “Shame,” a drama that aims to peer into the depths of the human soul to lay bare the most depraved, corrupted feelings. Carey Mulligan talks about her role in it with the latest issue of W Magazine.

Moviegoers might be familiar with Mulligan's work, but they're yet to see her in a role as challenging and revealing as the one she plays in “Shame.”

Usually, Carey does wonders with broken but very delicate characters, whom she plays to perfection. In “Shame,” she's anything but fragile.

Also starring Michael Fassbender, and directed by Steve McQueen, the film is relentless when it comes to portraying human emotion and, most importantly, deeply flawed characters.

Mulligan plays Sissy, a woman described by W Magazine as “naked even when she's wearing clothes.” It's her upsetting relationship with her brother (Fassbender) that provides the thrust that sets the wheels in motion in the film.

Speaking with the magazine, Carey admits that it's her raunchiest role to date, but she stresses she doesn't have a problem with it.

Sissy is deeply and irreparably broken, so it only made sense for her to take it all off for the camera because that's what the script required of her.

In doing so, W notes, Carey is virtually ditching her previous good girl image that she's maintained so far.

In “Shame,” Carey also sings. She says this was actually harder for her to do than to remove her clothing for one particular scene.

“I’ve never sung in a movie before. The point wasn’t really that Sissy was a great singer – it was more that she attracted people. I sing 'New York, New York' in the film, and Steve [McQueen] wanted it live,” Carey recalls.

“We did 15 takes – because every time I made a mistake or my voice fell out of tune or I lost my breath, we’d have to cut, and Steve wanted to do the whole thing in one go,” she says.

McQueen also wanted Carey to come up with her own song for another scene, arguing that she should have no problems coming up with a tune since Sissy was an artist.

“I was walking around the room thinking, How do you write a song?! Eventually I made up this really bluesy song and sang two lines,” Carey says with a smile.

For more from the interview, please refer here. “Shame” has been playing in select US theaters since December 2.