Carey Mulligan gets Closer to West End comeback?

British starlet Carey Mulligan – who is now best known internationally for her films including An Education, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Never Let Me Go, Drive, The Great Gatsby and the forthcoming Far From the Madding Crowd – is reportedly working on squeezing a return to the London stage in between her screen commitments.

According to the Mail on Sunday, Mulligan is in negotiations to star next summer in a West End revival of Patrick Marber‘s Olivier Award-winning 1997 play Closer, helmed by fellow Brit David Leveaux, who directed Mulligan in a 2011 New York adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly.

Mulligan’s previous London stage credits have included The Hypochondriac at the Almeida in 2005 and The Seagull, with Kristin Scott Thomas, which ran at the Royal Court in 2007 and transferred to Broadway in 2008. Closer would mark her West End debut.

Marber’s modern classic, set in London, centres on the tangled (and frequently unfaithful) relationships between two couples: Alice, a young American stripper, and Dan, the writer who’s penned a book about her experiences; and Larry, a doctor, and Anna, a photographer. The play premiered at the National in 1997 before transferring to the West End and, in 1999, to Broadway. In 2004, it was made into a film starring Brits Clive Owen and Jude Law and Americans Julia Roberts and Natalie Portman.

It’s not clear which female part Mulligan would play in the revival, and there’s no further word yet on other casting.