‘Great Gatsby’ star Carey Mulligan  

The 'Great Gatsby' actress admits she feels overwhelmed when surrounded by press and has recalled how she use to break down when walking a red carpet, struggling to contain herself while in the spotlight.

She said: "I don't like photos. I used to be much worse on the red carpet. I'd just sort of stand there. By the time I'd got to the end I'd be in tears.

"My publicist would have to clean me up, smooth me down and push me into whatever event I was going to. I'm slightly better now. But people looking at me, that freaks me out ... "

After Carey - whose husband is Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford - learned to curb her emotions she decided to take on more "dramatic", contrasting film roles to give the audience a different reaction each time they watched her in a movie.

She told Time Out magazine: "I like doing something dramatically different every time. I don't want the audience to think of me as myself. That's why I ended up losing my hair.

"I dyed it peroxide blond for 'Public Enemies'. It turned to straw. And I got stuck with the short hair thing."