Carey Mulligan says film sets are 'limiting' environments for working mothers
Carey Mulligan has called film sets "limiting" for mothers, deploring a lack of childcare for working parents in the movie industry.
The actor, who has a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old son with her husband, singer Marcus Mumford, told the Radio Times that actors who are expecting children often have to "hide" their pregnancies.
"I don’t think being a working mother in our industry has been made that much easier. It’s incredibly difficult. Childcare is so expensive," she told the publication. "I’ve never, ever been on a set where they have childcare, but I've been on lots of sets where lots of people have very young children."
Mulligan brought her daughter Evelyn on the set of the 2017 Oscar-nominated period drama Mudbound, as well as that of the new drama Wildlife, in which she stars as a 1960 housewife who drifts away from her husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). There, the actor said, "loads of the crew had kids, but they had to arrange childcare. It's always incredibly complicated."
If childcare were in fact made available on filming locations, it "would make it possible for a lot of talented people to come and do their job", Mulligan said, adding: "At the moment, it's limiting."
The 33-year-old was expecting her son Wilfred when she filmed the BBC Two drama Collateral, which came out earlier this year and in which she plays the lead role. Showrunner David Hare changed her character's storyline so that she, too, would be pregnant — but not every actress has had the same chance to retain an important role while expecting a child.
"I don’t think we’re at the level where it’s acceptable across the board yet," Mulligan said. "I think if people can hide it, they do."
The actress has previously detailed the process of accepting the part of Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie on Collateral while pregnant, telling the TV Times: "I wrote back to David and told him I was interested, but I was also five weeks pregnant!
"He said he didn't see why Kip couldn’t be pregnant and only added two references to the pregnancy in the entire show. We just put a bump in and got on with it, and as my real bump grew we just took away the fake bump. It was tough towards the end of the shoot, as I was seven months pregnant and the baby was kicking me like mad!"
