  Her turns in a pair of Sundance flicks have tongues wagging that Carey Mulligan is the next Ellen Page. (Kevin Williamson, Sun Media)
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PARK CITY, Utah -- Some things can't be taught.
Such as how to manage the whiplash stardom that arrives with being Hollywood's newest overnight sensation.
Just ask little-known British actress Carey Mulligan, who finds herself hailed as the industry's It Girl after breaking big at this year's just-wrapped Sundance film festival.
Until a week ago, few outside the industry knew Mulligan's name. Now the 23-year-old is being compared to everyone from Ellen Page to Audrey Hepburn.
No pressure or anything.
"It's a crazy circus, quite an out-of-body experience, very surreal," she tells Sun Media. "This is my first festival, period, so I've got to enjoy it because I'll never have it again -- it's all downhill from here."
Don't bet on it. Mulligan is a stand-out in two very different films: the tear-jerker The Greatest and the coming-of-age memoir An Education.
In the latter, she plays Jenny, an English teenager in the 1960s seduced by an older man played by Peter Saarsgard. Adapted by High Fidelity and About A Boy author Nick Hornby and directed by Lone Scherfig, it's generated the most critical accolades of any film at this Sundance.
Reviews for The Greatest have been more tepid -- aside from raves for Mulligan's turn as a pregnant 18-year-old who, after the baby's father is killed in a car accident, moves in with his mourning parents, played by Pierce Brosnan and Susan Sarandon. And yet, as with all Next Big Things, it has been a career years in the making for Mulligan.
"It's been a very long process," she says, recalling how she first auditioned for An Education in 2006.
Shortly thereafter the production collapsed before eventually being remounted with Scherfig at the helm.
"It's always touch and go on all independent films. I never let myself believe it would really get filmed until I was on the set," says Mulligan, who has small roles in two upcoming high-profile movies: Michael Mann's Public Enemies opposite Johnny Depp and the war-themed drama Brothers with Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire.
Now, though, An Education is both finished -- and poised for release. After a bidding war, distributor Sony Pictures Classics snapped it up for $3 million, buoyed by the buzz for Mulligan's performance as a 16-year-old who transforms from middle-class teenager to worldly woman.
"Playing 16, you are so bad -- or I was at least -- at capping emotions and holding back and not saying the first thing that comes into my head. And that's what Jenny does a lot of," she says. "I was quite socially awkward. Not an introvert but I could say the wrong thing quite a lot. I was always massively enthusiastic. I never had a cool thing. Even now I'm not cool."
For proof of this, she offers up her recent appearance on the Sundance party scene.
"We went to see some big DJ. We got in, right next to the speakers and deck, apparently the best seats in the place. But it was so loud and unpleasant. I'm sure he's brilliant at what he does, but it's so not my scene."
Moreover, Mulligan is swiftly learning that once you have success as an actor, you no longer have your characters to hide behind.
"I love telling stories and love being somebody else. I'm not so good at being myself. I can't public speak and a lot of the time I can't articulate myself very well, so I think I really enjoy playing other people more than I like being me. I find that whole photo-taking quite difficult.
"When I get here and I'm wearing a dress and they're taking my picture and saying, 'Give us something' you're like, 'Give me a character.' It's very hard to just be you when you're used to being other people. This public side of things is tricky. I don't know what kind of look to pull. I can't stand there with my hand on my hip. I just kind of stand and stare and hope that's good enough."
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