Carey Mulligan - Mulligan Left Disturbed By Shame Suicide Scenes

The An Education star admits she initially thought the harrowing bathroom scene with Michael Fassbender would be a giggle as she checked out the prosthetic wounds that would be used after her depressed character slashes her wrists - but it was no laughing matter when she had to shoot.

Speaking at the recent New York Times Arts & Leisure weekend, Mulligan recalls, "I'm in the bathroom with a knife and there's blood everywhere... There was a man crouched in the bath with a pump pumping the blood that was coming out of the prosthetic wounds in my wrist... It was just weird.

"They took casts of my wrists and made these big horrible wounds and fed these pipes through it. I was sending pictures to my best friend in London: 'Ha ha!' I don't know why I thought it was funny. My friend said, 'Watch out because it might actually make you feel horrible'.

"I got into doing it and it was the worst thing I'd ever done; I hated doing it. I was wearing these white boxers and this white shirt and after every take I was covered in blood. They'd shut the door and I'd strip off everything, scrub myself with shaving foam, which was the only thing that takes the fake blood off, and then put on a new set and lie there covered with blood and then we'd reset.

"I got in the cab at the end of the night and I called my friend and I was sobbing. It was the most desolate feeling. I was barely conscious in the scene but it was a horrible place to go and I hated it."