Actress Carey Mulligan. Photo / AP
Hollywood star Carey Mulligan has said she struggled to enjoy her fame and became anxious about being pigeon-holed as "a British actress in a bonnet".
Mulligan won an Oscar nomination for her role as a schoolgirl in the film An Education, at the age of 24.
The Great Gatsby star, who is married to Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford, has spoken about her early success during an interview with Radio Times magazine.
"In retrospect I wish I'd had more fun with it, but I didn't," Mulligan said.
She added: "I got a bit terrified. I was - and am - not great at having my photo taken and doing red carpets.
"When I was a bit younger, it used to paralyse me with fear. I used to get to the end of a red carpet in tears - awful.
"I don't really know why, I was just sort of a bit overwhelmed. I should have been at the parties having a good time, but instead I was at the parties being, like, 'When can I leave?"'
The actress also said she hated the prospect of being continuously cast as an English rose in British period dramas.
"I had great experiences but also felt nervous about being pigeon-holed as being a British actress in a bonnet," she said.
Mulligan recently filmed Suffragette with Meryl Streep, a film about the early years of the British women's suffrage movement.
"Women were force-fed, went on hunger strike, blew up houses, blew up churches, chained themselves to government buildings and martyred themselves, and 100 years later, no one's ever made a film about it."
Mulligan's other film credits include Pride & Prejudice, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, and Inside Llewyn Davis.
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