Carey Mulligan reacts to furore over Oscars snubbing Barbie director Greta Gerwig

Carey Mulligan has admitted she is “gutted” for Barbie director Greta Gerwig after she was sensationally snubbed from this year’s Academy Awards.

The 2024 Oscar nominations were met with a fierce backlash, including a withering open letter from Barbie star Ryan Gosling, after it emerged that both Gerwig and lead actor and producer Margot Robbie had not been nominated.

Mulligan, who stars in Bradley Cooper’s Best Picture contender, Maestro, is up for Best Actress for her performance as Felicia Montealegre, the wife of legendary conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein.

She is competing against stars including Poor Things’ Emma Stone and Killers of the Flower Moon actor Lily Gladstone.

In an interview with The Times, Mulligan addressed the uproar surrounding the Barbie snubs and questioned what else Gerwig could have done to deserve a nod.

“I’m gutted for Greta because I don’t know what else you can do as a director to get nominated,” she said.

“You make a critically acclaimed film that’s also an incredible global success, and yet you don’t get nominated?”

Mulligan said anyone who claims not to care about the Oscars is “100 per cent lying”.

A nomination “is just the coolest thing. Because it’s from your peers. It’s wicked,” she said.

The Oscar nominations caused a frenzy when they were announced last month, with critics including Barbie stars Gosling and America Ferrera, and former US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wading into the row.

In a statement seen by The Independent,Gosling said there was “no Ken without Barbie, and there is no Barbie movie without Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the two people most responsible for this history-making, globally-celebrated film”.

“No recognition would be possible for anyone on the film without their talent, grit and genius,” he continued.

“To say that I’m disappointed that they are not nominated in their respective categories would be an understatement.”

Robbie broke her silence on the snub earlier this week, telling Deadline there was “no way to feel sad” when “you’re this blessed”.

She added that she was “beyond ecstatic that we’ve got eight Academy Award nominations – it’s so wild”.

“Everyone getting the nods that they’ve had is just incredible, and the Best Picture nod,” Robbie continued.

“Obviously I think Greta should be nominated as a director because what she did is a once-in-a-career, once-in-a-lifetime thing, what she pulled off, it really is. But it’s been an incredible year for all the films.

“We set out to do something that would shift culture, affect culture, just make some sort of impact,” she said. “And it’s already done that, and some, way more than we ever dreamed it would. And that is truly the biggest reward that could come out of all of this.”