Brie Larson

© Suhaimi Abdullah, Getty Images (supplied by Empire Street)

Brie Larson won the 2016 Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, Critics Choice, and National Board of Review awards for her breakthrough lead performance as Ma in Room, directed by Lenny Abrahamson and adapted from the best-selling book by Emma Donoghue, about a young woman and her 5-year-old son who finally gain their freedom after being held captive for years in an enclosed space.

A native of Sacramento, Larson started studying drama at the early age of six, as the youngest student ever to attend the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

In October 2023, Larson executive produced and led the Apple TV+ series, Lessons in Chemistry, which earned her Screen Actors Guild, Critics Choice, and Golden Globe Award nominations. Based on the critically acclaimed #1 New York Times Bestseller from author and science editor Bonnie Gamus, Larson stars as 1960s chemist, Elizabeth Zott, who finds herself contemplating her purpose when her professional career abruptly concludes only to learn she’s pregnant.

The Academy Award-winner starred as Carol Danvers in Marvel’s first female-led superhero film, Captain Marvel. Released in 2019, the film generated a record-breaking box office debut with $455 million in worldwide ticket sales – the biggest ever for a female-fronted film, the second largest for any superhero pic, behind Avengers: Infinity War, and the seventh Marvel movie ever to surpass $1 billion. The success landed her a coveted spot-on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019 list.

Previously, in April 2019, Larson reprised her role as Captain Marvel in Avengers: Endgame, which grossed over $2.7 billion. She once again led as Carol Danvers in the Captain Marvel sequel, The Marvels, which hit theaters on November 10, 2023. Additionally, Larson starred in Fast X, the penultimate film of the Fast and Furious franchise, which sped to theaters on May 19, 2023.

Larson directed, and executive produced the unscripted Disney+ series, Growing Up. The series explored ten different coming-of-age stories, representing a wide range of lived experiences, through narrative, experimental, and documentary filmmaking. Also, for Disney+, the actor starred, and executive produced the live-action short film Remembering. 

Recognized by her voting peers, Larson became an Emmy Award-winner in 2020 for Outstanding Original Interactive Program category as a co-producer of The Messy Truth VR Experience.

Her feature film directorial debut, Unicorn Store, premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival and released on Netflix on April, 5, 2019.

In 2020, Larson reunited with director Destin Daniel Cretton in Warner Brothers’ Just Mercy, a biographical drama based on attorney Bryan Stevenson’s legal defense of a man wrongfully imprisoned for murder.

In August 2017, she starred in Lionsgate’s The Glass Castle, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, based on the best-selling memoir by Jeannette Walls. Earlier that year, she starred in Warner Bros’ Kong: Skull Island which earned $566 million worldwide, and the Martin Scorsese executive-produced ‘70s crime thriller Free Fire, directed by Ben Wheatley. The latter premiered at the 2016 Toronto and London Film Festivals.

In 2013, Larson starred in Short Term 12, her first collaboration with director Destin Daniel Cretton. Her dramatic role as Grace, the director of a foster care facility, earned her Best Actress wins at the Locarno Film Festival and Gotham Awards, and a Best Actress nomination at the Critics Choice Awards. The Los Angeles Times labeled her the It Girl of the SXSW film festival, where it premiered.

Larson has worked with top directors and co-stars on esteemed films including Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck opposite writer/star Amy Schumer; Rupert Wyatt’s The Gambler opposite Mark Wahlberg; James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now opposite Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller; Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut Don Jon; Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 21 Jump Street; Oren Moverman’s Rampart as the defiant daughter of Woody Harrelson; and Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Larson is still widely recognized for her portrayal of Toni Collette’s sarcastic and rebellious daughter in Showtime’s breakout drama United States of Tara, which was created by Academy Award-winning writer Diablo Cody and based on an original idea by Steven Spielberg.

She has appeared on stage at the prestigious Williamstown Theater Festival in the role of “Emily” in Our Town and recurred on the F/X cult favorite series, The League.