On the Los Angeles set of Captain Marvel last spring, Brie Larson downplayed the massive expectations and social significance that surrounds her role as the face of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first female-fronted superhero film. “You don’t get to decide if you’re an inspiration to people or not,” she said at the time. So what has the experience meant to her now that the film is hitting theaters this week?
“It’s been profound, personally,” she told Yahoo Entertainment at a recent press event at Edwards Air Force Base in California (watch above). “I have found a level of strength that I didn’t know I had. I feel like I’ve been pretty open about the fact that I’m definitely an introvert. So putting myself out there in a public way with this film or even owning that type of stance or power that Carol holds felt kind of silly to me, and seemed like a big hurdle.
“I can do things that are very internal, but sort of opening up felt difficult. So being able to spend this time doing that has just prepared me for a different way of living my life now that I’m really excited about. So whatever happens with the movie is sort of secondary to the personal journey that I’ve been on with it.”
On that same set visit, costar Samuel L. Jackson showed us cell phone footage of a newly jacked Larson, the 29-year-old Oscar winner for Room, literally pushing a Jeep up a hill (footage that the actress recently shared on social media, among other feats of strength she’s showed off).
And to Larson, the physicality involved in prepping for and playing the supercharged heroine Carol Danvers provided the perfect metaphor for the highs and lows she faced on that journey. “What’s interesting is that the lows are really the highs,” she said. “And the best way I know how to describe is through training, which is kind of a lame thing to say.
“But when you’re working out, you’ll train for so long and you’ll finally be able to do something that you weren’t able to before. So maybe it’s breaking your dead-lifting record. For me, it was really hard to break 200 [pounds]. It took me a long time. And you break it, and you have 60 seconds where you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I just did this thing.’ … And then like two seconds later, you’re doing something else and you can’t do it. You can’t do 20 push-ups that day.
“So there’s this constant balance of the highs and the lows and in those lower moments, getting the strength to overcome it then becomes a thing where you get in your car at the end of the day and you’re like, ‘I did that! It felt impossible. It felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to do it. And I did it.’ And then the moments that are great are also brief, too. Everything’s so brief. So it’s just kind of recognizing the present moment for what it is because it’s just gonna slip away.”
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