That sound you hear is Rebecca Hall raising her face to the heavens and shouting, “Mulligaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” Because it’s true: Baz Luhrmann has chosen Carey Mulligan to play Daisy Buchanan in his new take on The Great Gatsby.
The Moulin Rouge director has spent a while now figuring out his adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic 1922 tome, which picked apart the American dream while skewering the bored rich types of the Jazz Age.
As part of the process, Luhrmann’s been holding workshops of the script he wrote alongside regular collaborator Craig Pearce with Hall, Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio playing the three central roles of Daisy, Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. Then shortly before the weekend, sources told Vulture that after considering a variety of names, including Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson (natch), Michelle Williams, Blake Lively, Keira Knightley and more, Luhrmann was leaning towards Mulligan as his girl.
Now comes word that the late entry and Wall Street 2 actress has won the job. “The results from the workshop process on **The Great Gatsby **have been very encouraging," the director tells Deadline. "There are a few elements that I feel need to be resolved before I would categorically state that this is my next film. Regarding the role of Daisy Buchanan, I was privileged to explore the character with some of the world's most talented actresses, each one bringing their own particular interpretation, all of which were legitimate and exciting. However, specific to this particular production, I was thrilled to pick up the phone an hour ago to the young Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan and say to her: ‘Hello, Daisy Buchanan.’”
And just how did Mulligan, who happened to be walking the red carpet at the Fashion Council Awards in New York, react? Apparently, she burst into happy tears of joy in front of the assembled press and such fashion luminaries as Karl Lagerfeld. Aww… Doesn’t it just make you love Sally Sparrow that much more?
Whether or not this becomes his next active project, Luhrmann still has to track down a few more actors to play the likes of Daisy’s hubby Tom and Tom’s mistress Myrtle Wilson, among others (which means Hall could still be up for a major role). And that’s assuming both Maguire and DiCaprio are definitely locked in as the leads. We bet he's just crossing his fingers that Oliver Stone won’t rush a version into cinemas with Colin Farrell as Gatsby. Because that could never happen… Could it?