Posted by Adam

Wednesday February 17, 2010

CAREY Mulligan wants to be the next Meryl Streep.

The British beauty — who’s nominated for a Best Actress gong at this year’s Oscars — says she’s keen to shun stardom and instead focus on challenging herself and stretching herself like her idol Streep.

“What I’d like to be is Meryl,” said Mulligan. “She’s rare and extraordinary. I don’t want to repeat me. I want to stretch myself. I want to do things that scare me.”

Carey, 24, admits she planned to sleep through the Oscar nomination announcements — but was so excited so ended up getting up at 5.05am to see them.

“I’m staying in a house in LA, and the morning the nominees were announced, I went to bed 2:30 in the morning,” she recalled. “I sat up and watched Edge of Darkness and Requiem for a Dream. My idea was to sleep through the nominations, so this way I wouldn’t be nervous or disappointed.

“Well, my internal clock went off and I woke at five past 5. So, I figured, I might as well brave it and I tuned in.”

When she heard that she had been nominated for an Oscar,”I went blank,” Carey said. “My head went blank. And then I screamed and started crying.

“It took a while to sink in. I’m still sort of processing it. My first call was to my PR lady in England.”

Tags: carey mulligan, meryl streep