Carey Mulligan on ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’, Danish Directors, and Learning to Milk Cows

By Kristina Moskalenko

Far from the Madding Crowd isn’t your typical period piece. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg, it adapts Thomas Hardy’s novel with grit and grace.

Carey Mulligan is Bathsheba Everdene — bold, independent, and running her own farm. She rejects convention and navigates love on her own terms.

Three men want her: a quiet shepherd, a reckless soldier, and a wealthy bachelor. But this is more than a romance — it’s about power, freedom, and a woman in charge.

Mulligan owns every frame.

KRISTINA MOSKALENKO: Second time with a Danish director. First it was Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive, 2011), now Thomas Vinterberg in Far from the Madding Crowd. You have a thing for Danes?

CAREY MULLIGAN: (laughs) Maybe I do. They’re very direct. There’s no fluff, just truth. British period films are often so… tight. Like everyone’s in costume, reciting lines like it’s Shakespeare on speed. Vinterberg didn’t care about the pageantry
he just wanted us to feel things.

KRISTINA MOSKALENKO: So it was easier?

CAREY MULLIGAN: So much easier. Sometimes I’d catch myself — shoulders stiff, trying to embody 19th-century posture, which was a big deal in those days, and Thomas would just look at me and say relax and you did.

KRISTINA MOSKALENKO: Your character’s in love with three men. It’s not a love triangle anymore, it’s a square. Which scene stays with you?

CAREY MULLIGAN: Honestly? One I’m not even in. Tom Sturridge’s character, Sergeant Troy, there’s this wild, beautiful swimming scene. It was freezing cold, probably dangerous, but it’s so sensual, so visual. Then there’s Gabriel Oak, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, walking across the beach at dawn after losing his flock.
Charlotte Bruus Christensen shot it. She’s pure genius with light.

KRISTINA MOSKALENKO: I personally love the scene, where you bottle-feed baby lamb. It’s adorable.

CAREY MULLIGAN: I didn’t want to give him back. I actually begged — “Can we do just one more take?” I didn’t even name him, he’s probably a roast by now. But I do love the countryside. Lots of my friends work on the land, and I actually tried milking a cow when I was little. For this film, I learned how to ride, wash sheep… Now that felt like real life!

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