Carey Mulligan to play Daisy Buchanan in 'The Great Gatsby'

By Sarah Sluis

Director Baz Luhrmann has a knack for colorful epics that seem to move in a parallel universe to their original historical context--Moulin Rouge! or Romeo + Juliet, anyone? I'm still harboring disappointment that his version of Alexander the Great didn't get made (and Oliver Stone's so-so Alexander did).

So I'm willing to see the Australian take on the great American jazz age novel The Great Gatsby, which, like Romeo + Juliet, is part of the high school assigned-reading canon. He just announced that he cast the British actress Carey Mulligan as the female lead, Daisy Buchanan. The role was apparently in hot demand, with much of young Hollywood auditioning for the role, according to Deadline Hollywood. In the end, he chose the spritely Mulligan, whose career has exploded since her Oscar-nominated performance in last year's An Education.

During a workshop of the screenplay, Leonardo DiCaprio (who was Luhrmann's Romeo) played Jay Gatsby and Tobey Maguire the narrator, Nick Carraway. Tom Buchanan, the third main male role, has not been cast.

Now that he's cast his female lead, there's the question of when the movie will start production. Mulligan just completed Drive with Ryan Reynolds, so it appears her schedule is fairly clear, and both DiCaprio and Maguire have mainly producer credits in their "in-production" sections on IMDB. My guess: soon.

Luhrmann's last film, Australia, was a bit of miss at the box office, in spite of its massive Oprah endorsement (I guess she has more sway with her book club). For Americans, at least, The Great Gatsby has more appeal, especially because it's so widely assigned in schools--I know that had an impact on all the teens who caught Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (or perhaps saw it instead of reading the play).

The character of Daisy has been called superficial and manipulative, as evidenced by a couple of choice lines she recites in The Great Gatsby, which may or may not appear in Luhrmann's script.

After the birth of her child: "All right...I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

"I KNOW. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything�Sophisticated - God, I'm sophisticated."

If Mulligan can manage to give these lines the innocent yet willful spin she succeeded in conveying in An Education, maybe we'll end up with a Daisy that's a bit less of an enigma and more someone with whom the audience identifies.

(Photo of Carey Mulligan during a screen test from Deadline.com)