Brie Larson

The name nobody could pronounce

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers decided her last name was too hard for casting directors in Los Angeles. She picked Larson after an American Girl doll she had as a child, and because her great-grandmother on her mother's side had that surname. In 2005 she tried to become the next teen pop sensation with an album titled Finally Out of P.E., which barely sold 4,000 copies in the United States. That early flop forced her back to auditions for supporting TV roles and rebellious daughter parts.

And it worked.

In 2013 she shot Short Term 12 under the direction of Destin Daniel Cretton. It was the first time critics truly noticed her ability to carry an entire film with almost no makeup. But before that, she had to survive years of rejections in which producers asked her to come back to the room in a miniskirt and heels. She always refused. That quiet resistance shaped the way she has chosen projects ever since she was a teenager studying acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

The lockdown that earned an Oscar

To prepare for her role in Room (2015), she spent an entire month at home. She followed a restrictive diet to lose body fat and did not wash her face for weeks so her skin would look real on Lenny Abrahamson's camera. Won the Best Actress Oscar at just 26 years old after a campaign in which she confessed she felt like an outsider on the red carpet. That award was not an endpoint but the start of a period of total control over her public image.

The industry didn't know what to do with her.

In 2017, she directed her first feature film, Unicorn Store. It was a personal project that Netflix bought after she was already a global star. But Larson didn't want to be just a face on indie festival posters. She wanted control of the story and the kind of money that only big superhero franchises bring in. So she signed with Marvel Studios to lead its first solo film starring a woman.

The Corporate Leap

Filming Captain Marvel (2019) required her to train for nine months straight. She managed to deadlift 100 kilos and push a Jeep uphill to prove she could meet the script's physical demands. The film grossed $ 1,128 million at the global box office. That figure gave her financial security, but it also put her at the center of an online harassment campaign over her comments on the lack of diversity in film criticism.

He didn't care much.

In 2023, she produced and starred in the series Lessons in Chemistry for Apple TV+. She played Elizabeth Zott, a chemist who ends up hosting a cooking show in the 1950s. Larson made sure the production had a balanced crew and that the show's tone didn't slide into cheap sentimentality. But the market is unpredictable, and that same year The Marvels (2023) became the least profitable release in its franchise's history.

The Marvels (2023) wrapped up its theatrical run with worldwide box office of $206 million against a production budget of $270 million.