We're coming into a new generation of women where there's the submissive woman, and then our reaction to it is, 'No, I'm a man, too, and I'm masculine,' and then we fight against it, which isn't the answer, either.
— Brie Larson
I've been really fortunate that I've worked with a lot of strong women who are also mothers.
I think I was always a little sponge as a kid, and I was always looking for more information constantly.
I get uncomfortable and kind of scared sometimes of certain public situations because, since I've been on TV or I've appeared in some films, people think this boundary between us has been removed, and I owe them something.
I'm a bit of a lurker on Reddit.
Now I find seriousness to be rather ridiculous.
I just don't want to stop finding things interesting. I don't want to ever stop learning. I want to be a weird encyclopedia of bizarre knowledge.
I like working, I just don't like to get involved in the competitiveness of it.
I was home-schooled, was always very close with my mom, and was very straight-laced and square. I was never the rebellious one, and I never threw hissy fits. I was the type of person that would show a Powerpoint presentation about why I should do something versus crying and screaming over it.
My first acting gig was a skit for Jay Leno on 'The Tonight Show.' It was this Barbie commercial where I got to pour mud all over Barbie dolls and watch the heads pop off. It was so exciting, a lot of fun.
I've been so impressed by the material that's been sent to me, but I don't think that's because it's me.
I've become more comfortable as time has gone on with saying goodbye because... I've been having so many conversations about the cyclical nature of life. It just keeps going.
I wasn't perfect and didn't have it together. I felt alone. So through acting, I decided to be a shape shifter and with every role become the character instead of being myself. It meant about 10 years of no one knowing I was the same person in every movie.
I didn't want to just watch a woman who was getting it right all the time. We're not perfect.
As an adult, there are technical aspects of filmmaking you understand, like having to pick up a cup on the same line every time.
When I was younger, watching movies, it felt like everything was glossy and beautiful, and I didn't really relate to it.
A lot of stuff I was reading in mythology was about how women used to be taught to be wild. The wild woman was an essence that existed in the world. We're still coming back from many years of us being chiseled out to be identical and quiet.
In my personal opinion, you miss out on the beauty of the moment if you go in planning what the moment is. It's like having a vacation too jam-packed with activities. You miss all of the sunsets.
Any movie I've done, my character has had a secret. Whether it's in the movie or not, it is usually never and it's usually not something I tell anybody. It is for me.
I made three or four different fonts during 'Short Term 12' -' it was how I'd calm my mind between scenes. I have graph paper and gel pens, and I would do the alphabet: just do 'a' over and over again until I got it perfect and then go to 'b' and then 'c'.
I love Grimes.
We all enjoy a magic show, but we don't demand a Q&A afterward explaining how it was done.
If I had my way, I would never do a leading role.
There are so many opportunities to learn things online, like between Coursera and Khan Academy and Duolingo. There are these awesome websites that are kind of these little personal Aristotles. There are times when I'm preparing for a role of some kind, and then I'll focus on a certain subject.
When what you do is play characters every day, all day, I wasn't really interested in playing a pop star on the weekends.
There's nothing I'd say that keeps me awake at night, but I think that - when you're working with a group of people that are so beyond talented - that, every day, you wake up going, 'All right, I gotta fight to stay at the same level as these people.' That's what makes it fun.
I started acting in second grade - my first role was in the Thanksgiving play. I was the Indian chasing the turkey. All the other mom's encouraged my mom to get me into acting after that. Also, when I saw 'The Sound of Music' at Music Circus, I knew I wanted to act.
I love mythology and folklore, and I respect the time, money, and opportunity that a film gives to an audience. It's a chance to empathize, reflect, and learn, so I really want to understand before I sign onto a project: 'What's the potential of this thing? What are we seeing and learning? What are we empathizing to?'
Your brain is so lovely and so willing to please. It wants to help so much.
I started watching so many different types of women, saw all the complexities of them, all the ways and the look and shapes they could be, and I felt it was missing for me in American film. I didn't see anybody I was watching in movies that felt like me. I felt rather tortured and lonely about it.
I'm 25. I'm a white, blonde girl in the entertainment industry - it's so easy to fall into a world of pleasing everyone. I feel more comfortable showing all these odd angles to myself.
I didn't realise how hard it was to be a mom and keep it all together.
I'm always interested in whatever I can do to not look at my phone.
I'd say there's more of a difference between a play and movie to TV than there is between TV and movies. But there's something involved in the repetition of things that require something different from me in order to sign onto a script.
Toni Collette has been a huge influence. She was my absolute number one idol, and then I got 'United States of Tara.' I was pinching myself. I couldn't believe the first day I was on set, and I got pages of dialogue of real stuff to do with her.
I don't deal well with being told what to wear and sit on a mark. It just feels like my soul is being ripped out.
I was born in Sacramento but moved to Los Angeles with my mom and my little sister when I was seven.
I don't like being able to be reached. I enjoy my solitude. Even people having my phone number seems like too much.
I think if a movie makes you cry, you probably needed to cry.
We don't have to live in a world where everyone reacts perfectly the first time around, and if you don't, everything falls apart, and no one speaks to you ever again.
I just really like learning. I have to keep using my brain; otherwise, I get depressed.
When you audition for something, and you book it, you think, 'Okay, well, I got the job, and now I actually have to show up on set and do it.' So, you show up on set, and you don't know, 'Am I going to get swallowed up by these people?'
I think that I write about stuff that others don't write about. I don't have a bunch of love songs cuz I don't really have much boy experience. I just write about what I am actually going through in my real life.
I have a lot of different influences. Everything from Maroon 5, Gwen Stefani, The Clash, Kanye West - just a lot of different artists.
'Short Term 12' was such a marathon. It's like trying to convey the same emotional depth as 'The Gambler' but with less time and a fingernail's worth of the budget.
I know it's odd. But when I was getting scuba certified, it was explained very early on that you never get to just strap on a tank and jump into the ocean. You have to know how deep you're going, and the deeper you go, the less amount of time you stay down there - and it takes longer to get to the surface.
Growing up, I just loved movies. It was how I saw the world, which I wanted to learn more about.
What 'Short Term 12' did was it gave me the confidence to explore my intuition more. The healing process that came for me for making that movie and then sharing it with people - I was able to see, first hand, that movies can have a healing power and they can teach us things.
When you eliminate all stimuli, your brain is like, 'Finally, we've got some space! I want to talk with you about something!'
There were times my mom and I butted heads - over my curfew, over something like that. Whenever we would hit these moments of emotional backfire, she would say, 'You just don't understand what it's like to be a mother... I could never handle losing you.' I was like, 'OK, but just, like, chill out.'
