Carey Mulligan has spoken about the importance of playing strong women in film to highlight the battle for equality.

The An Education star features in the upcoming film Suffragette alongside Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham Carter, telling the story of how British women won the right to vote.

Asked if the message still felt relevant now, she said: “Definitely. It’s such an important story to tell, the struggle for women’s rights in this country and it’s such an amazing way of looking at the way the world is now.

Carey Mulligan
Carey Mulligan (Joel Ryan/AP)

“A hundred years on there are still so many places in the world where women don’t have equality and don’t have equal human rights, and it really is a bigger story about equality.”

Carey, 29, plays heroine Bathsheba Everdene in an adaptation of the Thomas Hardy novel Far From The Madding Crowd and added that she had enjoyed playing another strong female for that film.

She said: “She’s a great character in any time, I think that’s the thing about these classic stories, the characters are so transferable and relatable because the stories are so well written.

Carey Mulligan
Carey Mulligan filming Far From The Madding Crowd (Tim Ireland/PA)

“Bathsheba is very modern, she’s very ahead of her time. She’s so three-dimensional and fully-fleshed which is why she’s so much fun to play.”

Far From The Madding Crowd is released in cinemas on May 1 and Suffragette is due out on October 30.