I’ve just been told that Carey Mulligan, being interested in Hollywood Elsewhere in advance of our scheduled phone interview, read yesterday’s post about her evolving appearance (“Transformer“) since early ’09. And her feelings were hurt by some of the comments. And so she doesn’t feel safe appearing on HE, given this atmosphere, so the phone chat is a no-go.

I don’t blame her. I deleted a couple of the nastier ones yesterday (one by “my brain is melting“), but I guess I should have been more slash-and-burn about it. As soon as I was told the interview had been cancelled, I read all 40 comments that were sitting there as of 6:15 pm, and four, I have to admit, fit my definition of cruel or harsh or needlessly insensitive. I should have whacked them out last night. HE is a place for blunt opinion, but I don’t want it to be a forum for cruelty. (Unless we’re talking about hurting the feelings of certain bearded directors.)

So here’s an apology to Ms. Mulligan, and a pledge that I will be all the more vigilant about editing out any further cruel stuff. I’ve edited out four more comments — the offending authors are “Gabriel,” “Harry Warden,” “My Brain Is Melting,” “K. Bowen” and “Robert Cashill.” The authors are advised to show a little more sensitivity next time.