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 it is now.

''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 Bathsheba Everdene in an adaptation of Thomas Hardy's Far From The Madding Crowd and said: ''She's a great character in any time, I think that's the thing.

''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.''