Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress, singer and filmmaker. She played supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, and has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockbusters. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.
At age six, Larson was the youngest student admitted to a training program at the American Conservatory Theater, and she began her acting career in 1998 with a comedy sketch on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She appeared as a regular in the sitcom Raising Dad (2001–2002) and experimented with a music career, releasing the album Finally Out of P.E. (2005). She subsequently had supporting roles in the comedy films Hoot (2006), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and 21 Jump Street (2012), and appeared as a sardonic teenager in the television series United States of Tara (2009–2011).
Larson's breakthrough came as a social worker in the independent drama Short Term 12 (2013) along with supporting roles in the coming-of-age romance The Spectacular Now (2013) and the comedy Trainwreck (2015). She gained wider recognition for her performance as a kidnapping victim in the drama Room (2015), for which she received the Academy Award for Best Actress. She ventured into blockbusters with the monster film Kong: Skull Island (2017) and by starring as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Captain Marvel (2019). Larson returned to television to star in the miniseries Lessons in Chemistry (2023), for which she earned a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress.
Larson has co-written and co-directed two short films, and made her feature film directorial debut with the independent comedy-drama Unicorn Store (2017). For producing the virtual reality series The Messy Truth VR Experience (2020), she won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Interactive Program. A gender equality activist and an advocate for sexual assault survivors, Larson is vocal about social and political issues.
Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers was born on October 1, 1989, in Sacramento, California to Heather (née Edwards) and Sylvain Desaulniers, homeopathic chiropractors who ran a practice together. They have another daughter, Milaine. Her father is Franco-Manitoban; French was Larson's first language. She holds dual citizenship of Canada and the United States. She was mostly home-schooled, which she believed allowed her to explore innovative and abstract experiences. Describing her early life, Larson has said she was "strait-laced and square", and that she shared a close bond with her mother but was shy and had social anxiety. During the summer, she wrote and directed her own home movies in which she cast her cousins, filmed in her garage. At age six, she expressed interest in becoming an actress, later remarking that the "creative arts was just something that was always in me". That same year, at age six, she auditioned for a training program at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where she became its youngest student. She has said she wanted to become an actress after watching Jennifer Lopez in Selena (1997).
Larson's parents divorced when she was aged seven. She had a dysfunctional relationship with her father, saying: "As a kid I tried to understand him and understand the situation. But he didn't do himself any favors. I don't think he ever really wanted to be a parent." Soon after their separation, Heather relocated to Los Angeles with her two daughters to fulfill Larson's acting ambition. They had limited financial means and lived in a small apartment near Hollywood studio lots at Burbank. Larson described the experience, "We had a crappy one-room apartment where the bed came out of the wall and we each had three articles of clothing." Even so, she has recounted fond memories of this period and credits her mother for doing the best she could for them.
As her last name was difficult to pronounce, she adopted the stage name Larson from her Swedish great-grandmother, as well as an American Girl doll named Kirsten Larson that she received as a child. Her first job was performing a commercial parody for Barbie, named "Malibu Mudslide Barbie", in a 1998 episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She subsequently took on guest roles in several television series, including Touched by an Angel and Popular. In 2000, she was cast in the Fox sitcom Schimmel, which was canceled before airing when its star, Robert Schimmel, was diagnosed with cancer.
2001–2008: Early work and music career
Larson's first major role came as Emily, the younger daughter of Bob Saget's character, in the WB sitcom Raising Dad, which aired for one season during the 2001–02 television schedule. Hal Boedeker of Orlando Sentinel criticized the program and wrote that its cast members were "merrily joking through the show". She was next hired for the ABC sitcom Hope & Faith, but she and some other cast members were replaced after an unaired pilot. In 2003, she starred alongside Beverley Mitchell in the Disney Channel film Right on Track, based on the junior drag race star sisters Erica and Courtney Enders, and played minor roles in the 2004 comedies Sleepover and 13 Going on 30.
Larson developed an interest in music at age eleven when she learned to play the guitar. A music executive encouraged her to write her own songs, and she began self-recording and uploading tracks to her own website. After failing to get cast as Wendy Darling in the 2003 film Peter Pan, Larson wrote and recorded a song titled "Invisible Girl", which received airplay on KIIS-FM. She soon signed a record deal with Tommy Mottola of Casablanca Records; she and Lindsay Lohan were the only artists signed by the label at the time. In 2005, she released the album Finally Out of P.E., for which she also co-wrote songs with other songwriters, including Blair Daly, Pam Sheyne, Lindy Robbins, and Holly Brook. She titled it after a gym teacher she disliked and has said the songs she wrote were mostly about failed job opportunities. One of her singles, "She Said", was featured on the MTV series Total Request Live, was listed by Billboard in their weekly listings of the most-played videos in the channel, and peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot Single Sales. Larson went on tour with Jesse McCartney for Teen People's "Rock in Shop" mall concerts, opened for him during his Beautiful Soul tour, and also performed in New York City at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even so, the album was not a success, selling only 3,500 copies. Larson later admitted to being disillusioned with her music career, saying, "I wanted to write all my own songs, and [the recording company] were afraid of that. I wanted to wear sneakers and play my guitar—they wanted heels and wind blown hair."
In 2006, Larson was cast alongside Logan Lerman and Cody Linley in the comedy film Hoot, about young vigilantes trying to save a group of owls. It received poor reviews, but Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle was appreciative of Larson and Linley for bringing "a dash of Indiana Jones to their roles". She had a small part, the following year, in the Amber Heard-starring drama Remember the Daze, and she launched an arts and literature magazine, Bunnies and Traps, for which she wrote her own opinion columns and accepted submissions from other artists and writers. Larson has said she frequently considered quitting acting at that point, as she found it difficult to find much work, blaming it on filmmakers' inability to typecast her. She was particularly discouraged when she lost out on key roles in the films Thirteen (2003) and Juno (2007). To support herself, Larson worked as a club DJ.
2009–2014: Independent films and breakthrough
In 2009, Larson began playing Kate Gregson, the sardonic teenage daughter of Toni Collette's character, coping with her mother's dissociative identity disorder, in the Showtime comedy-drama series United States of Tara. Portia Doubleday was initially cast in the role but was replaced with Larson after filming the pilot episode. Reviewing the first season for The New York Times, Alessandra Stanley took note of how well Larson played a "real teenager" and Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle credited her for finding nuance in her role. Larson has said that her character's journey to find meaning in life mirrored that of her own, and she was upset when the show was canceled after three seasons in 2011. Also in 2009, she starred alongside Rooney Mara in Tanner Hall, a coming-of-age film about four girls in boarding school. Despite disliking the film, Betsy Sharkey of the Los Angeles Times commended Larson for providing "one of the film's funniest bits". In her two other film releases that year, she played a scatterbrained cheerleader in House Broken and a popular high schooler in Just Peck.