Background

Ethnicity: Brie Larson's father is from a French-Canadian family, from Winnipeg, Manitoba, with distant Métis roots. Her mother has English, Swedish, German, Welsh, and Scottish ancestry.

Brie Larson was born on October 1, 1989, in Sacramento, California, the United States. Her parents, Heather and Sylvain Desaulniers, were homeopathic chiropractors and worked together. Having been brought up by a French Canadian dad, Larson majorly grew speaking French as her first language.

When Larson was 7 years old, her parents divorced. This caused her to suffer an emotional crisis. Her mother moved to Los Angeles with her two daughters. There, Larson pursued her dreams of becoming an actor. The family lived in a single-room apartment and survived on meager resources. Larson had a dysfunctional relationship with her dad, who she further reveals not to have been much interested in matters relating to his family. Larson says that a lot of the anger, fear, and vulnerability stemming from the divorce is a big part of what feeds her performances. She now credits her dad for her success: “I don’t have anger. I have gratitude.”

Despite the hard times, Brie Larson often recounts the fond memories they had during that period and credits her mom for having done the best she could for them.

Education

Larson was mostly homeschooled by her parents, who also encouraged her early theatrical ambitions. Brie was only aged 6 when she first expressed her interest in the acting industry. In an attempt to pursue her passion, she was enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Following her tender age at the time, she would set a record as the youngest student to have ever been admitted to the program.

Career

Larson started her acting career at the age of 8, with the talk show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The show featured Larson performing in a parody commercial for the Malibu Mudslide Barbie. She also acted in guest roles on other TV shows, including an appearance in 1999 on Touched by an Angel.

In 2001, Larson played Emily in the sitcom Raising Dad, which was aired on The WB network. The series narrated the story of a widower trying to raise his two daughters. Larson played the role of one of the daughters. The show was canceled after 22 episodes.

In 2003 Larson was cast as a teen drag racer in the Disney Channel TV movie Right on Track. The same year, she started highlighting her music skills. She released several tracks on her personal website. In 2004, Larson starred in the teen movie Sleepover, as well as playing a small part in the box office hit 13 Going on 30 (2004).

Soon after, she signed a recording deal with Tommy Mottola of the Casablanca Records. She would go ahead to co-write more songs with more songwriters which incidentally, were mainly about failed opportunities In 2005 she recorded an album of teen pop music, Finally Out of P.E. The album focused on teenage audiences. Before the release of the album, Larson released a DVD that featured the music video for one of its tracks, She Said. The album sold a little more than three thousand copies in the United States. In 2005 she also traveled around the United States with several artists such as Jesse McCartney.

In 2009, Larson starred in the drama film Tanner Hall. The movie was a coming-of-age tale of four teenage girls in a boarding school. Although the film was not a huge success, Larson’s character was noticed. The same year, she was offered the role of Kate Gregson in the Showtime comedy series United States of Tara. Her role was that of a troubled teenager coping with her mother’s dissociative identity disorder.

In 2010, Larson acted in the stage adaptation of the play Our Town at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. The play featured her as a precocious young girl, Emily Webb. Her character grabbed the attention of viewers and critics alike. In 2011, Larson performed a small role in the drama film Rampart.

In 2012, Larson made her directorial debut with the short film The Arm. The film won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. She performed in the film adaptation of the TV series 21 Jump Street. Larson always won the applause of critics because of the frank humor she infused in her roles.

In 2013, Larson co-directed a short film, Weighting, with Dustin Bowser. This film was screened at the SXSW Film Festival and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. The same year, Larson bagged her first lead role in a movie. She played Grace Howard in the drama movie Short Term 12, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. The movie featured Larson as a supervisor at a home for troubled teenagers. Larson portrayed the emotionally disturbed character remarkably well. Her performance was appreciated by all.

In 2013 and 2014, Larson appeared in supporting roles in movies such as The Spectacular Now, Don Jon, and The Gambler. In 2015, she was part of the comedy movie Digging for Fire. The movie allowed Larson to improvise her role. The same year, she acted in the comedy movie Trainwreck, which featured her as the sister of the lead character, portrayed by Amy Schumer.

In 2015, Larson bagged a career-defining role. She played Joy in the drama film Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson. Joy was portrayed as a woman held in captivity for seven years and living with her son. The emotional anguish of a mother trying to escape with her son was portrayed remarkably by Larson. Her stellar performance in the movie earned Larson the Academy Award for the Best Actress. She also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for the same movie.

After the success of Room, Larson was offered the lead role in the action-comedy movie Free Fire. In 2017, she played the role of a photojournalist in the movie Kong: Skull Island. The same year, she played the protagonist in the biographical movie The Glass Castle. It was based on the life of American author Jeannette Walls, and Larson played the role of the author. She observed Walls and her interaction with her siblings, to perform her character brilliantly.

In 2017, Larson directed her first feature film, Unicorn Store. It was a comedy movie that had Larson in the lead role. The movie was not a huge success.

Brie's latest credits include the crime drama Free Fire (2017) with Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer as well as drama The Glass Castle (2017) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). Brie reprised her coveted role as a Marvel superhero in the hit films Captain Marvel (2019) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Endgame earned $2.79 billion worldwide to rank as the highest-grossing film of all time, and Captain Marvel became the first female-led superhero film to collect over $1 billion worldwide.

Achievements

• 

  Larson is a talented actress who has played many different roles, receiving such accolades as an Academy Award and a Golden Globe. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
  
  She was featured by Forbes in their 30 Under 30 list of 2016 and was included by People magazine in their annual beauty list in 2016 and 2019. Madame Tussauds New York museum also installed a wax sculpture of Larson as Captain Marvel in 2019.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Basmati Blues

    (Linda Watt (Brie Larson), is a sheltered but brilliant yo...)

    2018
  • The Glass Castle

    (Based on the worldwide best-selling memoir starring Acade...)

    2017
  • Remember the Daze

    (This comedy looks through the eyes of a handful of teenag...)

    2007
  • Sleepover

    (In the summer before their freshman year in high school, ...)

    2004
  • The Spectacular Now

    (With sly humor and an intensity of feeling, The Spectacul...)

    2013
  • Short Term 12

    (Short Term 12 follows Grace (Academy Award Winner Brie La...)

    2013
  • Just Peck

    (A high school misfit befriends a beautiful and popular se...)

    2009
  • Captain Marvel

    (Marvel Studios' Captain Marvel takes you on a spectacular...)

    2019
  • Rampart

    (Woody Harrelson stars as Dave Brown, a corrupt cop in LAP...)

    2011
  • Don Jon

    (A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and ch...)

    2013
  • Hoot

    (From the best-selling children's novel by Carl Hiaasen co...)

    2006
  • Greenberg

    (Ben Stiller is Greenberg - single, fortyish and deliberat...)

    2010
  • Kong: Skull Island

    (When a scientific expedition to an uncharted island awake...)

    2017
  • Housebroken

    (Dad (Danny DeVito, TV's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia...)

    2009
  • Room

    (Both highly suspenseful and deeply emotional, Room is a u...)

    2015
  • Trainwreck

    (Amy (Amy Schumer) enjoys a life free from stifling romant...)

    2015
  • 13 Going On 30

    (Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo star in 13 Going On 30, ...)

    2004
  • 21 Jump Street

    (Rookie cops Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum go undercover a...)

    2012
  • Tanner Hall

    (Rooney Mara stars in this coming of age drama about love,...)

    2009
  • Avengers: Endgame

    (The fourth installment in the Avengers saga is the culmin...)

    2019
  • Digging for Fire

    (The discovery of a bone and a rusty old gun send a husban...)

    2015
  • The Trouble With Bliss

    (The Trouble With Bliss is a comedic coming of age story a...)

    2012
  • Madison

    (The Miss Madison may have seen better days, but she's abo...)

    2005
  • The Gambler

    (Jim Bennett (Mark Wahlberg) is a professor leading a doub...)

    2014
  • Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

    (Scott Pilgrim just met the girl of his dreams...literally...)

    2010

• music

  • Finally Out Of P.E. 2005

• TV series

  • United States of Tara

    (Tara Gregson is a wife and mother of two children in Over...)

Religion

Brie Larson is a Christian.

Politics

Larson is very candid with her followers on Twitter and Instagram about her political support, tweeting that women needed to be getting out and voting. She publicly supported Hillary Clinton during presidential elections.

Views

Larson is unafraid to speak her mind. The actress is a proud feminist, advocate for representation in Hollywood, and a supporter of sexual assault victims. She voices her strong protests against sexual exploitation of women and is one of the founding members of Time’s Up, which is an initiative to prevent sexual abuse in the entertainment industry. At the 88th Academy Awards ceremony, when a number of sexual abuse victims were brought on stage, Larson hugged each of them.

One of Larson’s biggest goals is to “change people’s opinions” with her movies, specifically concerning social and political topics. While some of her earlier roles might not fit the mold, people might be skeptical about Captain Marvel. However, Captain Marvel marks the first standalone female superhero for the Marvel Universe. The hero is also supposed to take over as the face of the brand, and so Larson is at the forefront of this enormous shift for the franchise.

Quotations: "I'm learning with the older that I get that some feelings are just universal and that I'm not the only one who hates their hair or their life at times."

"I don't feel any pressure to represent my gender. That shouldn't even be a factor. It's just a movie."

"Maybe you're not perfect, but you're willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That's a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there's something incredibly hopeful about that."

Personality

Although Larson wants to inspire change through her films, she is still baffled that people care about her personal opinions on topics. Larson noticed this more after her Oscar win, and still wonders why her opinion became more important: “Who cares what I think?” Larson also dislikes interviews for the same reason, thinking of them as a conversation she dominates too much.

Brie Larson is vegan and also has the habit of cooking for reporters. Some of her fixings include homemade flax crackers and avocado wedges sprinkled with sea salt

Larson’s key way to calm herself between scenes is to write. That’s a bit vague - specifically, she likes to make fonts. Larson will use graph paper and gel pens to create the alphabet in different styles. She says the practice keeps her mind active so that it’s easier for her to jump back into character.

Brie uses the surname of her maternal great-grandmother, Larson, as her stage surname. She also took the name because of an American Girl doll named Kirsten Larson.

She is a big fan of the Metroid game series and has expressed interest in playing the main character Samus Aran in a possible movie adaption. She is also a huge fan of Super Mario Bros video games.

For her movie Captain Marvel, she insisted on having ankle-length body-armor as her character's primary costume; according to Larson, "I just couldn't see myself strolling around in a bathing suit for two hours and change" (referring to Carol Danvers's red Kree uniform and black Warbird outfit, both of which bared her legs).

When she was a child, Larson made home movies as a child, casting her cousins and making sets in her garage.

She considers herself to be an introvert.

Interests

• video games, mycology

• Politicians

  Hillary Clinton

• Writers

  The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt, Interaction of Color by Josef Albers

• Sport & Clubs

  football

• Music & Bands

  Usher Raymond, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Mariah Carey, Taylor Swift, Destiny Child, Rosalía

Connections

In 2013, Larson began dating musician Alex Greenwald, lead musician of the Phantom Plant band. They two enjoyed a blissful dating life and were much aired by the press. In 2016, the duo got engaged and cohabited in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. However, the couple recently in 2019 made headlines with news that they had split.

Father:

Sylvain Desaulniers

Brie commented on her relationship with father, saying: "When I legally didn’t have to visit him anymore, I jumped on it. As a child, I tried to understand him and the situation. But he didn’t do himself a favor."

Sylvian regularly roots for his daughter in Facebook posts. In October 2015, Desaulniers shared a video of Larson on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Then, in September, he congratulated her on winning an award from IMDb. Earlier that month, he wrote on his page, “Go Brie!! This movie, Room, looks awesome!”

Mother:

Heather Desaulniers

Heather is a big influence in Brie’s life. Brie was born when her two parents were still together, in Sacramento, where they were both chiropractors who shared a practice. When she was just six years old, they divorced, and that ended with Heather and her two daughters moving to Los Angeles to start their new lives.

Brie Larson is still close with her mother. In October 2015, Heather Edwards accompanied her daughter to the premiere of Room. During a press conference in October 2015, Larson spoke glowingly about her mother saying: “My mom has this incredible imagination and she instilled so much life in that space that I never felt like I was lacking and I didn’t realize that we didn’t have anything.”

ex-boyfriend:

Alex Greenwald

Larson met Alex Greenwald, the frontman of the band Phantom Planet of The OC theme song fame, in 2013, and they got in engaged 3 years later. However, in early 2019, they announced that they had “taken a step back from their engagement for the time being but they remain close.”

Sister:

Milaine Desaulniers

Friend:

Jennifer Lawrence

Acquaintance:

Casey Affleck

When Larson presented the Best Actor Oscar to Casey Affleck for his work in Manchester by the Sea (2016) at the 2017 Oscars (the previous year's Best Actress always presents the current year's Best Actor awards and vice versa) she politely handed him the award but did not clap or cheer for his win and looked unhappy about it. Larson later confirmed rumors that she was un-celebratory over Affleck's win due to his real-life history of sexual harassment accusations and settled lawsuits, telling an interviewer that "what I did on stage speaks for itself" and that she would not discuss the matter any further.

colleague:

Chris Evans

colleague:

Anna Kendrick

colleague:

Woody Harrelson

Larson starred alongside Woody Harrelson in Rampart, and he credits Larson for changing “the nature of the film.” According to Harrelson, the film required a good deal of improvisation, and Larson’s knack for it sculpted many of the scenes. Harrelson also said Larson could one day be a “Cate Blanchett or Kate Winslet. She’s that good.”

colleague:

Jonah Hill

colleague:

Dakota Johnson

colleague:

Rami Malek

colleague:

Jessica Lange

colleague:

Shailene Woodley

Brie Larson and Shailene Woodley became close friends off-camera while shooting The Spectacular Now and were actually both up for the lead role in Room. In an interview preceding the film’s release, Woodley said she hoped Larson could “change the world” with her performance, creating a platform to explore the issue of violence against women.

colleague:

Orlando Bloom

colleague:

John Cena

colleague:

Cillian Murphy

colleague:

Naomi Watts

colleague:

Gwyneth Paltrow

colleague:

Karen Gillan

colleague:

Jeremy Renner

colleague:

Chris Hemsworth

colleague:

Mark Ruffalo

colleague:

Tom Holland

colleague:

Chadwick Boseman

colleague:

Sebastian Stan

colleague:

Benedict Cumberbatch

References

• Brie Larson on Instagram
• Brie Larson on Twitter