Brie Larson Explains Captain Marvel Prep Work

Brie Larson is revealing how she's preparing to play Captain Marvel in the upcoming MCU movie. It's no doubt been a couple of exciting year and a half for Larson after she nabbed her Best Actress Oscar in early 2016 for the compelling kidnapping drama Room. Recognizing the Larson's immense talent, Disney took the opportunity to sign Larson to play the Carol Danvers role in Captain Marvel, and in the interim, she's kept plenty busy as she waits for the film to go into production.

Confined to a single set for much of Room, it's apparent that Larson wants to stretch her creative muscles out in the open both mentally and physically. Among her recent movie roles is Larson's turn as a photographer caught up in the jungle madness of Kong: Skull Island; and this week, she's a character caught in the middle of an intense gun battle in the dark action/comedy Free Fire.

And while Larson no doubt got a serious workout on both of those films, she's preparing for what promises to be her most physically challenging role yet in Captain Marvel. In a new interview with CBR for Free Fire, Larson says:

"Anything that’s the physical side, from past experience, you hire specialists to help you understand that and quantify it and pace you out and figure it all out. That’s part of the fun of making a movie. There’s a person who does the focus-pulling, and they’re the specialist at understanding depth. They do something I don’t understand, and I do something they don’t understand."

Still, Larson's biggest area of concentration going into Captain Marvel is how she'll tackle the character from an emotional standpoint. She says:

"My main focus is more on the human side of it. The costumes and all the stuff that’s on the surface, there are people you should talk to that are really interesting and they’re the ones in charge of that part. I’m just in charge of what’s going on in her head."

Brie Larson as Mason Weaver in the mass grave looking into the camera in Kong Skull Island

While Larson has played roles across the spectrum – including comedy in the big screen adaptation of 21 Jump Street – playing complex characters has always been her priority; and she's thrilled that playing Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel provides her that opportunity:

"It’s always for me about the complexity. The thing that I love about her is that there are these actually two sides to her – these two things that are at war with each other. I feel like that’s what I love about being a person is that we’re constantly trying to balance between these two sides of ourselves, or many sides of ourselves. It’s such an amazing opportunity to be able to put that metaphor on the outside and make that part of what her conflict is."

If she wasn't excited enough for the role already, Larson has to be reveling in the news that Captain Marvel found its directors this week, with Mississippi Grind co-helmers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. In addition to announcing the directing duo this week, Marvel President Kevin Feige confirmed Friday that Captain Marvel starts shooting in February 2018, in what promises to be the first in a large volume of exciting new chapters in Larson's already-storied career.