Carey Mulligan in "Brothers"

"She was the "belle" of the festival, according to Harvey Weinstein, and her easy grace and gamine good looks had misty-eyed pundits making reference to Audrey Hepburn. The 23-year-old has been on British radars for a while - she played Ada Clare in the excellent BBC serialisation of Bleak House in 2005 - but her turn in An Education is about to propel her to international fame.

Mulligan plays a smart Twickenham schoolgirl coming of age in the early 1960s via a relationship with an older man (Peter Sarsgaard). An Education is based on a short memoir by Lynn Barber, adapted by Nick Hornby and directed by Lone Scherfig. The film, and Mulligan's "captivating" performance, garnered ecstatic reviews at Sundance and Berlin, where she was named one of 2009's "Shooting Stars".

Mulligan has been keeping starry company of late. She is Johnny Depp's louche girlfriend, briefly, in crime epic Public Enemies, out in July. Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon share the screen with her in The Greatest, and later this year you'll see her alongside Natalie Portman and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brothers". Source: www.guardian.co.uk