I got lucky this week: I was able to spend some time with Brie Larson. She’s been keeping super busy on a global press tour for “Captain Marvel” but she managed to find time to talk with me about the film and her thoughts on where the inclusion movement is going. She is a very thoughtful woman who is about to become one of the most recognized people in the world, and I sense that she has a lot of ambivalence about that. It’s got to be hard. But she’s already using her global platform to do so much good.
“Captain Marvel” arrives this weekend with a lot of baggage attached to it in the push for gender equality. It’s the first standalone Marvel movie with a female lead, with a female co-director, and with a female composer. It’s the first time women have held any of those titles in the Marvel universe. This is big. And Larson is more than up to the task — and explaining why it’s so important to have more women both on camera and behind the scenes.
“Captain Marvel” opens today, March 8.
This interview has been condensed and edited. It was transcribed by Sophia Stewart.
W&H: What does it mean to you to have the first standalone female-led Marvel movie be such a feminist film?
BL: I’m just doing what feels honest and true, so I haven’t really defined it in those ways because I don’t really feel like my work is up for me to define. It’s up for everybody else to decide on.
For me, making movies has been so great because it’s like a message in a bottle. It’s my way of sharing how I feel and what I’m going through and my experience with the world. Then sometimes I get to hear back from other people who go, “Oh that happens to me, too” or, “I feel like that, too,” and it makes me feel less alone.
W&H: The film was co-written by women, co-directed by a woman, and had a female composer. What do you think this means in the movement for inclusion, which I know you’re so passionate about?
BL: These are beginning steps to these conversations that I feel like have been softly spoken and have now been getting louder and louder over the last couple of years. To me, it’s an understanding of what representation really means. It’s not good enough to just have a female-led movie, to have one woman in it—that actually doesn’t really tell the whole story or complete the picture in any way.
We all understand in the industry that there’s pre-production and then production and post-production. Especially with a film like this, it’s going to many different countries to do visual effects, and there’s so many more departments and things happening on a film like this — it’s way too big for any one person to control. So because of that, ensuring that there were female voices in every department along the way ensures that there’s a collective voice that’s participating in this.
W&H: So there were females below-the-line too?
BL: Yeah.
W&H: What was it like working with co-directors, and a female co-director also? I looked on your IMDb page and you haven’t had a lot of women directors.
BL: Yeah, just two women.
W&H: You did “Tanner Hall,” directed by Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Fürstenberg. I think that might be it, besides this one?
BL: And then TV.
W&H: Yes, with TV you did work with a lot of women. Talk a bit about having not only two directors in Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, but also having this female-male team.
BL: I’m honestly surprised at anyone who’s a solo director who directs a movie like this.
W&H: You directed “Unicorn Store” solo!
BL: But of this scale. It’s just so much, because they’re also editing at the same time as filming, so it’s a lot. There’s a lot to be done. I think having someone — especially someone that you’ve worked with since film school — is, I suspect, an invaluable tool.
It’s such a tricky question when you get into, “What was it like working with a female director?” because then I still feel like we’re getting into that trope because we don’t know hypothetically what the differences can be.
W&H: I guess the question about the “smiling scene” kind of plays into the differences in gender as I was reading how the female editor kept the smiling scene it in.
BL: Totally. And I think that why that’s important is because, for example, with the smiling thing — that has been a major conversation for me since the trailer came out. And a lot of it has been from men who have said, “That’s a thing?” Yet there isn’t a woman in my life who was like, “I don’t understand that.” Every woman in my life could tell you exactly every time that that’s happened to her.
But a lot of men maybe don’t think that way, don’t understand that that’s part of the experience. To me, that’s when I realized we were hitting on really special things because we can talk about the larger, bigger, systemic issues, but there’s also these smaller ones that are also oppressing that might not seem like a big deal, but they are things that get under our skin. So to have those be part of a story like this and to be protected, like what you’re saying — maybe that is exactly what it is.
W&H: Like everyday microagressions — girls just get them because they just happen every single day all day long.
BL: Yeah, exactly.
W&H: I was also so happy that the film focused on female friendship. Women never get to be with women in these movies — it’s always a woman. Talk a little bit about that part of the movie.
BL: It’s something I’m really proud of with this movie. If you want to look at the movie as this movie formula, the love in this movie — the great love, the love lost, the love found again — is her best friend. That feels really powerful.
W&H: I love that.
BL: And I think that it works. and I think a huge reason why it works is because Lashana Lynch, who plays Carol’s best friend, is so good and just demands your attention and presence. I would go to the ends of the earth for my best friends, so it just makes sense to me.
And I think once again, if we want to talk about this film as being a reflection of feminism, a huge part of that is that there are other voices: you have Lashana being one version of what it means to be a woman, and you have Gemma Chan being one, and you have Annette Bening being one. They’re all very different. And I think even having a more contentious relationship like the one Carol has with Gemma Chan’s character, Minerva, is also powerful in its own way, and it’s adding complexity to this.
So to me, that’s an aspect that I think is really powerful in this movie because you’re right — I very rarely get to interact with other women on screen.
W&H: In general actresses were all kind of siloed away from each other pre-Time’s Up, and now those silos are completely breaking down. Women are organizing together.
BL: I think that’s part of what this shift is — it’s a cultural shift, where now we have platforms like social media, and we’re having giant conversations about our hopes and dreams and what’s missing and when we like what we see. So we can have this — hopefully — civil public discourse about that, and that’s how we’re able to see what’s not up there.
In my career of making movies and watching other people make movies, I feel like what we’re trying to do is finish a puzzle — a puzzle that we’ll never complete, but with every film we’re hoping to fill in a gap. Or maybe it’s a bingo card — whatever metaphor you want to use. But we’re trying to fill something up. So that means we have to continue to push those boundaries, and we’re never going to be done. We can always try to strive for more and get closer to it, but as quickly as the world is changing, then movies will have to reflect on that, but it will keep changing.
W&H: Did you have any role in getting the character of Carol’s friend to be a woman of color? Was that always in the cards?
BL: It was always there, always there.
W&H: It was always there that she was going to be a black woman?
BL: Yes. Yeah, it’s in the comics too, so it’s natural. It’s all very natural.
W&H: One of the things that you talk about is your platform now and your ability to be a role model for people and to navigate conversations that you want to have. Talk a little bit about how you’re using your abilities to really have these hard conversations in our culture. Do you feel any pressure about that?
BL: I don’t feel pressure about it because it’s just who I am. I don’t feel like I can do it another way. I enjoy making positive change where I can because I love my job, but the public nature of it is not my favorite part at all. It’s something that I’ve struggled with; it’s the thing that I’ve had to spend the most time learning to get good at and understand and not lose sleep over. For me, that’s how I balance it because I don’t enjoy having power, but I do enjoy being able to give power to other people — to people that aren’t getting it and shining a light on that.
That’s something that I try to focus mainly on with my work because I feel like storytelling is such a powerful way of getting points across in a way that’s not always as verbal and is more up for interpretation and about emoting and feeling. But it’s also led to me wanting to help as best I can to create safety and parity in my industry. I’m working most of the time now, so it’s very easy to see where things need to shift and change. Whether it’s been this press tour or now I’m looking to how we can create better pipelines to diversify behind the camera more. That’s my next step; that’s what I’m working on now.
W&H: I run a film festival that just finished this weekend called the Athena Film Festival that focuses on women and leadership. We are really working hard at Athena to create a pipeline. We started a parity pipeline program to get more women doing all these roles because then we’ll have equality everywhere. You really want to focus on below-the-line — that’s your passion — so what are your thoughts on how to make that happen?
BL: First and foremost, people have to know those jobs exist. People know about acting, directing, maybe producing — but there’s all kind of other things. For example, there are people who work on set called greens. I explain to people that we didn’t just show up to the jungle in “Kong” and shoot — there was someone in charge of it, and someone that planted things for it. So you can have so many different types of interests and loves and also be part of this industry, and we need those voices. So that, to me, is the first step.
The second step is creating the proper curriculum and education so that people feel prepped and confident and ready to be on the job when that time comes because, for a lot of people, they’re learning on the job. I learned pretty much everything on the job. That’s not to say that you won’t still learn things on the job, but creating something that’s clear, maybe with an accreditation system, and making it easier for people to get into the unions, that’s another piece of it.
W&H: You wanted this press tour to be inclusive. Do you feel you’ve accomplished that?
BL: I feel like I have, yeah. Statistically, we have.
W&H: Have you noticed the questions have been different when you talk to women?
BL: That’s so hard to say; it’s hard to quantify what the difference is. But to me, it really isn’t about that. That wasn’t really the point. The point was this movie is about breaking down barriers and lifting people up, and so it’s not good enough to just make a movie and give you that feeling when you walk out of the movie—I want to actually do that.
W&H: This film has the most Fandango presales since “Infinity War,” so it’s going to be big. Everyone’s going to know you. I would imagine that’s going to be quite a change in your life. How are you going to handle that?
BL: I don’t know! No idea. I haven’t experienced it yet. It’s something that people have said to me for, like, three years. But I’m just figuring it out.
W&H: I was just looking at some of the movies you’re going to do next. I see “Just Mercy” on your slate. Are you still doing the Victoria Woodhull biopic?
BL: Yeah, that’s still in development.
W&H: And then are you going to take a little time off now and chill?
BL: Yup!
W&H: I have this quote from when we talked about your film “Unicorn Store” where you said, “As I’m growing older, I’m realizing that it’s the thinkers that are looking for things outside of the cultural norms who are the ones changing society and helping it to grow. They’re great teachers of this earth, and I’m hoping that as we’re continuing to grow, we’re gonna start to nurture those people more.” You said those are the real superheroes of the world. I just love your deep dive into all of this. It’s really intense for you; it’s not just a superficial thing.
BL: Yeah, this stuff is my heart and soul. This is my life; this is how I have to spend my time, and this is how I choose to spend my time, so I have to believe in it.
W&H: I feel like it’s really different for actresses now in terms of your ability to really use your authentic voice. Whereas I watch women in interviews from the ’90s, and they couldn’t really be safe to use their authenticity to say this stuff—they’d lose a job or an agent would yell at them.
BL: There’s still, of course, risk with all of this, but I feel strengthened by the fact that I am not alone in using my voice now.
W&H: Did you get a chance to read the Emma Thompson letter?
BL: No, I didn’t. I’ve heard of it.
W&H: It was, I thought, one the most pivotal moments. Not only did she quit her job, but she asks questions like, “I can quit my job, but what about the people who can’t?” Where do you think this movement is going?
BL: Who’s to say? I’m not in control of it, but I think that it gets stronger every day. Like I said, as quickly as the world is changing, the movement is changing; we are shaping it, and it is shaping us. It’s a constant evolving thing, which is what I like to remind people because people think there’s some destination to get to. There is no destination; this is going to be a lifelong thing. But where it starts is being able to talk about it, and that’s where we’re really just getting to right now.
We’re at this turning point where I feel like there’s more people understanding what we’re seeing than not, at least in my experience. And I still think we’re stumbling through, but we’re getting there, and that to me is it.
Whether we’re talking about gender equality or discrimination of any kind or issues of safety—these are things that first require safe spaces to be able to talk about them, which we didn’t have before. Which is not to say that it’s totally safe now and everything’s great, but I feel like we’re getting closer to that. That’s my main focus at this point.
W&H: What do you want to say to the girls who are going to see “Captain Marvel?”
BL: I’m excited to hear what you have to say about the film. That’s it. I don’t have any expectation or desire for them to get anything out of it. I feel like the world already tells them what they’re supposed to think and feel and be; I’m not going to tell them what to do with this movie.
