Carey Mulligan For W Magazine January 2012

Carey Mulligan wears just a Nina Ricci raffia tweed jacket and cotton bra on the cover of the January 2012 issue of W magazine.

The tagline for the issue is appropriately title “Carey Mulligan: Naughty But Nice – The star of Shame sheds her good-girl image.”

Carey’s high dramatically editorial, shot by Michael Thompson was given a 60s theatrical styling treatment by Edward Enninful.

The editorial sees her wearing Louis Vuitton, the one person who I hope will bring this Spring 2012 collection alive on the red carpet, Prada, Miu Miu, Jean Paul Gaultier and Rochas.

In her interview the British actress talks about nude scenes and her unsettling and haunting new film, ‘Shame’.

Here are some extracts.

On her nude scene: “I’ve never, never been naked in a film before; I’ve been topless once or twice, but always in sort of very innocent ways. And I’ve always been sort of staunchly feminist about it, I’ve never relished the idea of doing it, and never if it was inappropriate or gratuitous in any way. But I just felt it was absolutely right; that’s exactly who she was. She wanted to be seen, she’s an exhibitionist and she’s provocative.”

On feeling confident playing a character who didn’t worry about her appearance: “I didn’t have to worry about what I ate, or how much I drank, and I didn’t have to work out. She was an alcoholic mess. She didn’t have any money to dye her hair. I mean I didn’t become an alcoholic, but I didn’t have to watch myself. It was so much more exciting to play that character that didn’t worry about her appearance in any way. I knew that when I stood up in that bath naked it wasn’t about whether I looked good naked or not. It was about who she was.”

On playing the suicide attempt scene: “I was sitting there and this fake blood was pumping out of my arms and I was in this completely hopeless state with a kitchen knife next to me. And it was horrible, it was really horrible and I wasn’t expecting it, it was a complete surprise, and I felt awful. It sounds so pretentious, but it just made me feel horrible. I felt devastated and I felt so sad. And I’m fine. I’m great and well adjusted and everything’s cool, but just the idea of being that helpless and that lonely, it was just really sad. I got into the taxi at the end of the day and I couldn’t stop crying.”