Carey Mulligan — or Carey Hannah Mulligan, if you're curious about her full name — was born in London, England's Westminster area on May 28, 1985, according to Brittanica. Her father, Steven, was a hotel manager, while her mother, Nano, is a university lecturer. While her dad is from Liverpool and her mother is Welsh, the family moved to Germany when Mulligan was three years old for her father's work. However, Hello! notes that the future star later "returned to England to attend senior school in Surrey."
As for Mulligan's desire to pursue acting, that clearly didn't come from her parents. "I fell in love with it was when I was six years old, and they were doing a production of The King and I at school. My brother was in the play and I wasn't," she told Broadway.com, quipping that they cast her in the chorus after she "stamped [her] feet a little bit."
Still, Mulligan's parents weren't terribly keen on their daughter's choice of career, and wanted her to attend Reading University to pursue what they likely considered to be a more stable profession, per The Telegraph. But Mulligan didn't give in and, per Hello!, "fibbed that she had applied — instead taking a part-time job as a barmaid while continuing to follow her dream." Granted, that dream might have seemed like a nightmare at first: Mulligan wasn't accepted into any acting programs she applied to, which left her unsure about keeping at it. Luckily, she didn't give up.
