COVER STORY
Brie Larson is the marvellous Captain Marvel
– a feminist first!
Even with an Oscar on her mantlepiece, Brie Larson didn’t consider herself ‘famous’. She could still go out for dinner undisturbed and walk about without being mobbed by fans. But now that she’s Captain Marvel, her days of relative anonymity may well be over. But it’s all worth it, says Brie.
Believe it or not, Brie Larson almost turned down the biggest role of her career. When she was first approached to join the most lucrative franchise in the world and take on the lead role in Marvel’s first-ever female-led film, she balked at the idea.
‘I never saw myself doing something like this, mostly because I like being anonymous,’ she says.
‘I like disappearing into characters, and I always felt like if you’re out in the public eye too much, it potentially limits you in the future.’
The opportunity, however, was just too good to pass up. ‘Ultimately I couldn’t deny the fact that this movie is everything I care about, everything that’s progressive and important and meaningful, and a symbol I wish I would have had growing up,’ she says. ‘I really, really feel like it’s worth it if it can bring understanding and confidence to young women.’
In one of Brie’s most-liked Instagram posts she’s seen signing an autograph for a little girl at the Captain Marvel premiere. Her young fan is dressed in a Captain Marvel costume and beaming at the camera, and the caption captures the significance of the moment: ‘I did it for you, superstar.’
Many people were shocked by the casting choice; before Captain Marvel, Brie was best known for her dramatic roles, most notably her Oscar-winning performance in 2015’s Room. But that was exactly
what drew the studio to her – they wanted an actress with range.
‘It’s very important to us that all of our heroes do not become silhouette-perfect cut-out icons,’ explains Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.
‘All of the Marvel characters have flaws to them, all of them have a deep humanity to them. Captain Marvel is as powerful a character as we’ve ever put in a movie. Her powers are off the charts, and when she’s introduced she will be by far the strongest character we’ve ever had. It’s important, then, to counterbalance that with someone who feels real. She needs to have a humanity to tap into, and Brie can do that.’
According to Brie, the role required more range than any other character she’s played – which is saying something, if you consider the part she won an Academy Award for in 2016. In Room, she portrayed a woman who is held captive in a small garden shed along with her young son, fathered by her captor. It’s a story of survival – and also a homage to Brie’s own mother.
Her own childhood, of course, was nowhere near as horrifying, but looking back, Brie says she realises that as a single parent her own mom faced a lot of hardship, often without letting on. Her mother’s sacrifices, says Brie, allowed her to have a carefree childhood despite their financial difficulties.
‘We lived in this studio apartment, in a room with a bed that came out of the wall,’ she recalls. ‘My mom couldn’t even afford a Happy Meal. I had no toys.
I had two shirts and a pair of jeans, and that was it. My mom was struggling while being in a very small space with two children, and being sure not to put any of it on us. You realise how hard she tried and you see it from this perspective that you couldn’t as a kid.’
She remembers how close-knit they were as a family of three, with her sister, Mimsy. ‘I had my mom all to myself and I just remember that being the coolest period.’
In Captain Marvel, and in the record-breaking Avengers: Endgame, Brie plays ex-Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. In some ways she is the newest Avenger;
in others, she was the first. (It’s complicated, but here’s the short version: Captain Marvel is set in the ’90s, and in the movie it is revealed that meeting Carol gave Nick Fury the idea of putting together a superhero team. She even inspired the name: her pilot call sign was Carol ‘Avenger’ Danvers.)
To get into character Brie spent a few days at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base, where she got hands-on flight experience, learned about weapons systems and took part in a simulated dogfight in an F-15 fighter aircraft. To bring authenticity to the role, she also enlisted the help of Brigadier General Jeannie Leavitt, who became the first female fighter pilot in the US Air Force in 1993. But the most significant experience, says Brie, took place once the action was over – when the female Air Force pilots took her out for burgers and beers.
‘The vibe was a huge part of what I learned: that camaraderie, that sense of humour, the value of that especially when so much is on the line. It was something that really touched me and I wanted to bring it back to set,’ she says.
Then there was the physical aspect of playing a superhero. As someone who had ‘never been particularly active’ (and couldn’t do a single push-up, says her trainer), Brie had to do an intense amount of training in preparation for the role. ‘Carol is a trained warrior and I can barely walk in a straight line,’ she jokes. ‘So for me to get to the point where I could do all of the
‘I did it for you, superstar.’
things that were required of me meant really putting myself to the test and dedicating a lot of hours to it.’
Luckily, after seeing what he had helped Emily Blunt accomplish for Edge of Tomorrow, Brie recruited trainer Jason Walsh to help her get into superhero shape over the course of nine months. Jason started her off with 90-minute workouts every day for the first six months before upping the ante to two-hour workouts twice a day for the final three. (This, btw, is on top of her stunt training.) She built up muscle with 100kg deadlifts and 180kg hip thrusts.
‘I was usually pretty dead after around four hours of exercise a day,’ she admits. ‘It’s really a full-time job. I completely turned my body around. I was just pure muscle by the end of all that. But I do think it’s important to say that it took a nutritionist, two different trainers, a paleo meal delivery service, a lot of mozzarella sticks and a lot of sleep and water.’
Her hard work definitely paid off. Friend and co-star Samuel L Jackson couldn’t resist showing off a video of Brie pushing a 2268kg Jeep up a hill – it’s posted on her Instagram account – and she became so adept at wire work, flips and fight scenes that she ended up doing most of her own stunts.
‘On any other Marvel movie, stunt doubles would be doing 99 percent of what she’s doing,’ says producer Jonathan Schwartz. Brie spent so much time at the stunt gym that they had to tell her: ‘You need to get some rest. Stop pushing yourself so hard.’
Prior to Captain Marvel Brie had never taken on a role that required her to show off her physique. ‘I never wanted my body to be a part of the conversation. I just wanted to disappear. And so I never put thought towards it because I didn’t want anybody else to think about it. So getting to take my body back and own it and make it a weapon and a tool was really powerful.’
When it comes to staying grounded, Captain America actor Chris Evans gave her a valuable bit of advice: his strategy was just to view the hype around his character as if it were ‘happening to someone else’.
Brie has taken his advice to heart, but there’s one bit of Carol she doesn’t mind embracing. ‘I want to hold on to the cockiness and the sense of ownership,’ she says. ‘Because I do believe in my abilities, and
I do value myself, and I do know that I’m strong, and I do know that I can do a lot of things that people don’t think I can do.’