Carey Mulligan embracing costume dramas with Thomas Hardy role

Carey Mulligan is learning to embrace her role as a leading lady of literary costume drama after signing up for another period piece as the star of Far From The Madding Crowd.

The 27 year old landed her big break with a role in the 2005 movie adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride + Prejudice, and she went on to rack up an impressive list of credits in screen versions of classic books including Charles Dickens' Bleak House, Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Baz Luhrmann's new film re-telling of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Mulligan has now signed up to play the lead role of Bathsheba Everdene in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic Far From The Madding Crowd by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg, and the actress admits she has given up trying to avoid period roles.

She tells Vogue magazine, "I've stopped fighting costume dramas. (Vinterberg) is such an interesting director, I think he'll do something really cool with it (Far From The Madding Crowd). It's a crazy story."

Far From The Madding Crowd focuses on the story of an independent and wealthy woman who is pursued by three suitors.

Bathsheba has previously been played on the big screen by Julie Christie in an Oscar-winning 1967 adaptation.