barmaid and an errand-runner for Ealing Studios between acting jobs. Career 2004–2008: Early work In 2004 Mulligan made her stage debut in the play Forty Winks at the Royal Court Theatre in London. She made her film debut the following year in Joe Wright's 2005 film adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Pride & Prejudice, portraying Kitty Bennet alongside Keira Knightley. Later that year, she won the role of orphan Ada Clare in the BAFTA award-winning BBC adaption of Charles Dickens' Bleak House, her television debut. Among her 2007 projects were My Boy Jack, starring Daniel Radcliffe, another Jane Austen adaptation, Northanger Abbey, starring Felicity Jones, and the Doctor Who episode "Blink", which won her the Constellation Award for Best Female Performance in a 2007 Science Fiction Television Episode. She rounded out 2007 by appearing in an acclaimed stage revival of The Seagull, in which she played Nina alongside Kristin Scott Thomas and Chiwetel Ejiofor. The Daily Telegraph said her performance was "quite extraordinarily radiating'" and The Observer called her "almost unbearably affecting." While in the middle of the production, she had to have an appendectomy, preventing her from being able to perform for a week. For her debut Broadway performance in the 2008 American transfer of The Seagull, she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, but lost to Angela Lansbury for Blithe Spirit. 2009–2014: Breakthrough and critical success Her big breakthrough came when, at 24, she was cast in her first leading role as Jenny in the 2009 independent film An Education, directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig and written by Nick Hornby. Over a hundred actresses auditioned for the part, but Mulligan's audition impressed Scherfig the most. The film and her performance received rave reviews, and she was nominated for an Academy Award, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, Critics Choice and won a BAFTA Award. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly and Todd McCarthy of Variety both compared her performance to that of Audrey Hepburn. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers described her as having given a "sensational, starmaking performance," Mulligan was the recipient of the BAFTA Rising Star Award nomination, which is voted on by the British public. In 2010, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, That same year she starred in the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel Never Let Me Go with Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield. She won