Pump the brakes! Carey Mulligan may be a multi-talented performer, but her abilities don’t carry over behind the wheel.
During a Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance on Tuesday, November 7, Mulligan, 32, confessed that she’s failed her driving test … five times.
“It’s way harder in England! Over there I failed. Here, it’s easy. I did it here —it was a piece of cake,” the actress said. “You literally drive around the block and they give you a license.” She added, “I could only drive for like six months while I was living here and then I went back to England and I can’t drive anywhere.”
The Oscar nominee explained that it’s not her skills but stress that gets to her. “It’s a pressure thing. I am an excellent driver,” she said. “Then I get in a test environment, someone has a clipboard, and my mind explodes. I cannot do anything and I make mistakes.”
Mulligan also reminisced about when she used to take the bus to auditions in Los Angeles: “I didn’t have friends so I would just spend my evenings figuring out my bus route.”
The mom, who welcomed her second baby with husband Marcus Mumford earlier this year, felt an obligation during both pregnancies to finally get her license, but it still hasn’t happened.
“I get quite far into [my first] pregnancy and I think, ‘Oh, God, I must learn to drive now because I’m going to be a mother. This is irresponsible,'” she said. “I’m nine months pregnant, I book my test—and I fail. Then I book another, 10 days before I give birth, and I fail that as well.”
“[During my second pregnancy] I think, ‘I have two children; I should really get a driver’s license.’ So, I wait until I’m nine months pregnant and I take one test and I fail,” she laughed.
