English rose Carey 'lobbied for role in my sex addict film'

Director Steve McQueen today described how Carey Mulligan lobbied him for a role in his new film about sex addiction. The English rose "got her hands on the script" and called him to ask for a part, McQueen said.

As the movie, Shame, gets its UK premiere at the BFI London Film Festival tonight, its director revealed how keen Mulligan was for the role of the sister of a sex addict - played by Michael Fassbender.

"Carey got her hands on the script and she wanted to speak to me and have conversations about the role," he said. It worked. When McQueen met Mulligan, Oscar-nominated for her role in An Education, the casting choice was instantaneous. "I offered her the role on the spot," he said.

McQueen, 42, the Turner Prize winning artist from west London, had known from the start that the role of New York sex addict Brandon should go to Fassbender. The actor, who lives in Hackney, won acclaim when he starved himself for the part of the IRA hunger striker in McQueen's debut film, Hunger.

But Mulligan was a revelation, McQueen said. "She was astonishing. I think it's the best thing she has done in film." Screenwriter Abi Morgan, 43, described both stars as having an extraordinary chemistry together. "They walk into a room and it's like a lightbulb going on."

Morgan and McQueen, who is based in Amsterdam, went to America to research sex addiction because no one would talk to them about it in the UK.

Shame is released in the UK on January 13.