Brie Larson is using her time in quarantine to connect with fans and explore her favourite hobbies through her own YouTube channel. Larson
launched her channel in July and looked to successful YouTubers for advice on how to focus her content. In addition to exploring DIY projects and her love of gaming, many suggested that Larson talk about her audition stories, from the good to — even better — the bad. On September 3, Larson uploaded Part 2 of her Audition Storytime video and revealed that she turned down the role of Captain Marvel a total of three times. Thankfully, she has a team that knows when to politely ignore her.Larson was on set in Australia shooting
Kong: Skull Island when she received the first phone call that Marvel was interested in the Oscar winner for the role of Captain Marvel. “I said ‘Oh I can't do that, I have too much anxiety, that's too much for me, I don't think I can handle that so tell them no,’” said Larson. “And my team were like ‘Okay sure,’ and then a couple of months later they told me, ‘Hey they called again, are you sure?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I'm too much of an introvert, that's way too big of a thing for me, it was beyond my comprehension and no.’”“Then they called a third time,” said Larson, who admitted that she is notorious for being unable to focus on more than one project at a time, which led to her team secretly deciding to wait until the actor had finished filming
Kong: Skull Island before giving Marvel a final answer. “So, the point is every time I would tell them no, and I thought my team was telling them no, they were not because I think they were thinking she would be great at this,” said Larson.“Time skips ahead and I'm back from filming. I had a meeting with [Marvel] and they had a pitch and they had a mock-up of the costume and I was very moved by what they were trying to achieve, what they were talking about, and it felt very progressive,” said Larson. “I was very surprised by that, by the way that they were talking about feminism, the way they were handling it. They were like, ‘All female writers, female director, gonna have as many female voices in this as possible,’” remembers the actor.
Still hesitant about taking on such a massive role with so much responsibility, Larson said that meeting with the writer-director team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck cemented her decision to accept the role. “That's a whole level of fame that I never expected to participate in and I thought, okay, the only way this works is if I believe in the story and the message,” said Larson. “I remember going home thinking, ‘Oh my god, I'm going to do this.’ I remember exactly where I was in my dining room. I was staring at my really crappy bookshelf that I got from Salvation Army, still a broke actor, and being like, ‘Oh my god, I'm going to do this.’”Larson said that her decision to accept the role was a moment of accomplishment. “I remember my team being really proud of me because they knew it was a big step for me in embodying myself, believing I could do something so big, in my confidence as a leader, in the belief in storytelling,” said Larson.Giving viewers a glimpse into the schedule of an actor and life pre-
Captain Marvel, Larson shared the extensive list of auditions she went out for in a one-year period between 2008 and 2009. Larson named a handful of projects that she made it to the final round of casting for, including
Juno, The Big Bang Theory, Thirteen, Pitch Perfect and
Into the Woods. As a reminder to young actors who feel disillusioned by repeatedly hearing ‘no,’ Larson also listed projects she initially didn’t get but later joined, including
The United States of Tara,
Kong: Skull Island and
Unicorn Store.Larson will return as Captain Marvel in the film’s second instalment, which is expected to be released in 2022.
Nia DaCosta will be behind the camera for the upcoming superhero film, making her the first Black woman to direct a stand-alone film in the Marvel Universe.[video_embed id='-1']Before you go: Super cool Golden Retriever chills out on a raft[/video_embed]
