Love Stories: Carey Mulligan declared Marcus Mumford 'not boyfriend material' when they met as kids
By Merryn Porter |
It seems destiny had a part to play in the love affair of English actress Carey Mulligan and her musician husband Marcus Mumford.
Long before the two became famous in their respective careers, Mulligan and Mumford met as children when they attended the same Christian youth camp.
And it seems their eventual marriage was fated in the stars, with Mulligan revealing that if they hadn't already reconnected when they did, they were destined to meet again on a movie a short time later.
The power couple have been in the spotlight recently after Mulligan was nominated for Best Actress at the 2024 Oscars for her role in Maestro. Though she didn't win, she and her musician husband shared an adorable moment backstage.?
Watch the video above.
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The I Will Wait ?singer shared footage of himself carrying his wife while she was still donning her stunning Oscars dress to TikTok.
The? video was shared with the song I'm Just Ken playing as the soundtrack.
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It was further undeniable proof that Mulligan? and Mumford are one of the cutest couple in Hollywood right now. But how did their love story begin?
Mulligan, now 38, was born in 1985 in London to her hotel manager father and university lecturer mother.
After spending part of her childhood in Germany, the family returned to England.
She first caught the acting bug at age six while watching her older brother rehearse for a school production of the King and I.
She begged his teachers for a role and was rewarded with a spot in the chorus.
"I wrote in my diary that [Marcus] was the nicest, the kindest person I'd ever met and I gave him 9? out of 10"
She was heavily involved in theatre during high school, performing in plays and musicals, and becoming the student head of the drama department.
When she was 12, she attended a ?Christian youth camp, where she met Mumford, who was two years younger.
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During an episode of the SmartLess podcast in 2023, she revealed she wrote about him in her diary.
"I wrote in my diary that he was the nicest, the kindest person I'd ever met and I gave him 9? out of 10," she recalled.
"I also wrote in my diary that he definitely wasn't boyfriend material. Not that I'd ever had a boyfriend at that time! But I decided that he was not it."
The pair reportedly wrote to each other as pen pals before losing touch.
When she was still a teen, Mulligan made her professional acting debut on stage before winning the role of Kitty Bennet in the film Pride & Prejudice, alongside Keira Knightley.
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TV and Broadway roles followed before she was cast in the 2009 film An Education, which saw her win the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. She was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress that year.
It was around this time Mulligan began dating Shia LaBeouf, whom she met while co-starring in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
After their relationship ended in early 2021, she reportedly reconnected with Mumford. By then, his musical career had taken off, having formed the band Mumford & Sons in 2007, the band behind hit songs including The Cave.
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Mulligan reportedly went to see Mumford & Sons in concert in Nashville.
Over the next few months, they were seen together several times in public in the UK, where they were both living.?
After what was reportedly a short, five-month relationship, the two got engaged in August 2011.
The following year, they collaborated on the film Inside Llewyn Davis, with Mulligan in a starring role while Mumford voiced a character and was the associate-producer of the film's soundtrack.
Mulligan previously said they were destined to meet during the film's production had they not already met in Nashville.
"If we had not met as adults in Nashville, which is how we did end up meeting, we would have met on that job because we both got hired independent of each other," she said.
The couple married on a farm in England on April 21, 2012, with famous friends including Sienna Miller, Jake Gyllenhaal and Colin Firth in attendance.
In February 2013, she was his date at the Grammy Awards, where Mumford & Sons performed and won the Grammy for Album of the Year for Babel. They also won for Best Long Form Music Video for Big Easy Express.
By 2015, they were dividing their time between a home in West London and a farmhouse in Devon, when she was not on stage on Broadway or on a film set, and he wasn't touring.
The? couple managed to hide that they were expecting a baby before the birth of their first child, daughter Evelyn Grace, in September 2015. The news was only confirmed a month later.
In an interview with The Telegraph in 2016, Mulligan said she and her husband liked to write love letters to each other when they were separated by work.
"Love letters are becoming a lost art form, which is very sad. To have a love letter from someone, to hold it in your hand and know you can keep it for your whole life, that's an amazing thing,"? she said.
The couple did not announce they were expecting a child the second time around. Their son Wilfred was reportedly born in August 2017, with the only confirmation coming when the actress was asked about being a new mother of two at a press conference.
"It's good, thank you," she replied.
In 2018, the couple turned heads when they were among the celebrities invited to the royal wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle. ?
During an interview with The Guardian in 2019, Mumford shared that he and Mulligan never go more than two weeks without seeing each other.
They briefly worked together in April 2021 when Mulligan was guest hosting Saturday Night Live. After telling the audience her husband was home watching their kids, he crashed her opening monologue.
"What a surprise!" she joked. "Hello, lovely to see you. Where are the kids?" Mulligan asked.
They followed the appearance by walking the red carpet together at the 2021 Academy Awards, where she was a Best Actress nominee for her role in Promising Young Woman.
The following year they appeared together on the red carpet of the Met Gala in New York.
Mulligan's representative confirmed she and Mumford were about to welcome another child in January 2023, with the pregnancy on display at the AFI Awards in LA later that day.
A Vogue story on the star that was published in November that year said Mulligan had given birth to a baby about six weeks before an interview took place for the article. Entertainment Tonight later confirmed she had given birth to a baby girl.
Over the years, the couple has supported each other in their respective careers.
Mulligan has continued to make movies, with her most recent film, Maestro, opposite Bradley Cooper. The film explores the relationship between American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre, played by Mulligan.
The role has earned her a slew of best actress nominations this award season, including a BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild, Critics Choice, Golden Globe and an Oscar.
The couple walked the red carpet together at the 2024 Academy Awards on March 11, where Mulligan was nominated for Best Actress. She ultimately lost out to Emma Stone.
