Carey Mulligan gets brutally honest about the impact of hidden pregnancies
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- Susan Devaney
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The Mudbound actress has openly criticised the lack of childcare offered to mothers on film sets.
Carey Mulligan is continuing to use her position to champion change for women. In recent months, the Suffragette actress has spoken out about the lack of interesting roles being offered to actresses today and the ridiculous pressure women face to undergo cosmetic surgery.
Now, in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Mulligan is calling for on-set childcare for parents in the film industry.
“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 Radio Times. “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 … I had my daughter on the set of [the films] Mudbound and Wildlife and loads of the crew had kids, but they had to arrange childcare. It’s always incredibly complicated.”
While praising the newly introduced codes of conduct for on-set behaviour, Mulligan believes having more childcare facilities available “would make it possible for a lot of talented people to come and do their job.”
Carey Mulligan as Detective Inspector Kip Glaspie in Collateral
However, Mulligan also argued that the industry isn’t accepting of pregnancy in general, commenting that it hasn’t yet reached a “level where it’s acceptable across the board”, leaving some women with the only option to “hide it”.
“It is welcome that producers are adapting leading roles, including Carey Mulligan’s, around pregnancy,” a spokesperson for the Women’s Equality Party told Stylist.co.uk, referring to Mulligan’s role in the BBC2 drama Collateral, where her pregnancy was fortunately written into the script. “It reflects the reality of many women off-screen and may even add to the characterisation. We already know that audiences respond better when they see themselves reflected on screen.”
“But we must also remember that there are only a handful of women for whom the television and film industry is willing to make these adjustments. Black and ethnic minority, disabled and older women are already poorly represented on screen and it is essential that these opportunities are also extended to them.”
You can read more on why motherhood needs to be more compatible with having a career here.
Images: Getty / BBC