<div id="subtitle">With tinges of Audrey Hepburn, 24-year-old Carey Mulligan nominated for best actress Oscar</div><div><p>Carey Mulligan, the 24-year-old star of "An Education," prepared herself for Oscar nominations in a peculiar way: She watched a film about drug addiction: "Requiem for a Dream."</p><p>First, the nominee for best actress went out to see Mel Gibson's "Edge of Darkness"; then she stayed up late at home watching the harrowing "Requiem," hoping it would distract her.</p><p>"It was so trippy," the British actress said Tuesday in an interview from Los Angeles. "It gave me something else to think about."</p><p>But the reality couldn't be avoided for long: Mulligan's widely acclaimed, star-making performance had brought her all way to the Oscars.</p><p>"It was like a really good, friendly punch in the stomach," she said. "It's a good feeling, but it's like a jolt. You can be in as many top-five lists and have as many people say things to you on red carpets as you like, and it doesn't for a single second make you honestly think that you're going to get nominated."</p><p>In "An Education," Mulligan plays Jenny, a teenage schoolgirl in suburban 1960s London who questions her imminent and promising ascent to university when she falls in love with an older man (Peter Sarsgaard). As Jenny, Mulligan is a seldom seen combination of beauty and smarts — there isn't a man or adult who intimates her.</p><p>"She's got so much going on in those eyes, in the face — the animation, the intelligence," said Nick Hornby, author and screenwriter of "An Education," who was nominated Tuesday for best adapted screenplay. The film was is also up for best picture.</p><p>"I used to joke to people that one line we were never going to get in a review was, `This is a great movie, but unfortunately Carey Mulligan sucks,'" said Hornby. "Without her, we were completely sunk. There's a radiance about her."</p><p>The performance has brought countless comparisons of Mulligan to Audrey Hepburn. She is also nominated for her first Oscar at the same age Hepburn was for hers — 1953, for "Roman Holiday," which she won.</p><p>"I've always been so embarrassed by that comparison," says Mulligan. "You feel like Shrek compared to Audrey Hepburn. It's a really nice comparison, but it just seems so mad."</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=68328714&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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