Carey Mulligan "felt the weight of responsibility" with her new movie 'She Said'.

The 37-year-old actress plays Megan Twohey - one of the New York Times journalists who exposed sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein - in the movie and she took her work "very seriously" because the story being depicted in the film is "so real and so recent".

She told People magazine: "I think we felt that weight of responsibility, and I felt that on other jobs.

"I think particularly when you play a real person, you have that, but the stories that we were telling are so real and so recent, and not just to the people that were involved in the film, but to viewers, to an audience.

"You're aware that this story will impact people who go and see it in the cinema, so I think we all felt like it was a big task and we took it very seriously."

Carey praised the real Megan - who won a Pulitzer Prize along with Jodi Kantor for their work on the expose - for giving "unfettered access to her life" when she was researching the role.

She said: "I've never played a person who's still alive. I played real people, but I've been reading autobiographies, so this was really exciting, and she's just the coolest person. So I wanted to be her friend. I wanted her to like me.

"Our kids hung out together. We had play dates. She brought her daughter to my son's birthday party, and she was just so generous. She was amazing."

The British actress - who has Evelyn, seven, and Wilfred, five, with husband Marcus Mumford - was guided by the journalist's passion for her work.

She said: "Journalism is a vocation for her, it's not just a job.

"It comes from this deeply rooted belief that she has that her vocation is to uncover injustice and mistruths and show them."

The movie also stars Zoe Kazan as Jodi and Mike Houston as disgraced producer Weinstein.