The role Brie Larson has always dreamed of playing: “Once again, I would love to do it”
Few actors in recent memory have been subject to more nerd consternation than Brie Larson, who joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the aptly-named Captain Marvel in 2019.
Prior to suiting up as 1990s throwback hero Carol Danvers in two middling solo adventures (one of which was an enormous hit), Larson looked poised to make her mark as one of the best actors of her generation.
After cutting her teeth in TV comedy and indie movies, she broke out with a brilliantly raw, emotionally honest performance in 2015’s Room, which took her all the way to a ‘Best Actress’ win at the Oscars. Since that triumph, Larson has rarely returned to that kind of human drama, instead primarily plying her trade in blockbusters: the Marvel movies, Kong: Skull Island, and Fast X.
Now, there are a few ways to look at a promising young star like Larson being absorbed by the soulless tentpole movies that dominate the modern movie landscape. On one hand, it’s undoubtedly disappointing to see someone so clearly capable of great things embarrassing herself in the tenth Fast and Furious movie, a franchise and a tone that she is woefully ill-suited for.
On the other hand, these are the kinds of movies that are getting made today, and perhaps Larson felt she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to raise her star profile (and make a ton of money) by playing a superhero and a franchise villain. In theory, these high-profile roles will help her receive greenlights on future passion projects, so perhaps it’s a strategic move on her part.
Having said that, there is also a third possibility at play that may rankle certain cinephiles: maybe Larson is making exactly the kinds of movies she wants to make. Maybe playing Captain Marvel was what she always wanted to do, and even though her tenure hasn’t worked out as well as some of the comic book giant’s other heavy hitters, she still values being part of a series of films that millions of people watch. Going even further, maybe she thought fighting a giant CGI ape and trying to land a sports car on Vin Diesel’s head was cool, and she had lots of fun on those films.
From this perspective, it’s entirely possible that Larson is just as much of a genre nerd as the next and probably grew up consuming the same films and shows as most other people of her ilk. This may explain why her dream role isn’t an adaptation of a classic piece of literature or one of those new takes on Shakespeare, made gritty or poppy. Instead, she’d love to play the intergalactic bounty hunter star of a series of popular video games.
“I would love that so much,” Larson told the Twitch online talk show Animal Talking when asked about potentially playing the heroic Samus Aran from the Metroid franchise, “So, I was Samus for Halloween two years ago. It was literally a $20 costume I bought off of Amazon”. Larson posted a picture of herself in the costume on Instagram, and suddenly, “it turned into this thing of people being like ‘Whoa!’”
She revealed that Samus was always her choice in the beat-em-up crossover game Super Smash Bros, and she has “loved her” for years. Hence, when the story in the air was that she could play the character in a film, she didn’t deny her desire to ensure that reality.
“I definitely want to make that movie, I definitely want to participate in that,” she said with a smile that stretched ear to ear, campaigning, “So, Nintendo, once again, I would love to do it!”
