Carey Mulligan is ''excited'' to start looking older.

The 29-year-old actress has insisted she's relieved her face is maturing, as it means she'll no longer play teenage characters, like she has done in so many films, due to her ''baby face''.

Carey said: ''I spent a lot of my early 20s playing teenagers because of my baby face. My agent has started saying, 'You've been offered this part, she's 19, you're too old', and I'm like, 'I'm too old? Brilliant! I've never been too old'. All the great parts come now, I think, so I'm excited.''

The 'Drive' star - who is married to Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons -went on to say that the reason she's bored of playing teenagers is because she finds ''dark characters'' a lot of ''fun'' to play, having grown up with a ''charmed life'' in reality.

Speaking to the Mirror, Carey said: ''I like dark characters, and it's fun to do things that are difficult, because I'm very happy and have had a very lovely, charmed life, lovely parents, lovely family and lovely education.

''It's very easy to play things that you know - it's when you have to play things that you don't really understand that it gets fun.''