Brie Larson

Brianne Sidonie Desaulniers (born October 1, 1989), known professionally as Brie Larson, is an American actress.

Known for her supporting roles in comedies as a teenager, she has since expanded to leading roles in independent films and blockbusters.

She has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award.

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, 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.

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.

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.

She appeared as a regular in the 2001 sitcom Raising Dad and briefly dabbled with a music career, releasing the album Finally Out of P.E. in 2005.

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.

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).

Her breakthrough came with a leading role in the acclaimed independent drama Short Term 12 (2013), and she continued to take on supporting parts in the romance The Spectacular Now (2013) and the comedy Trainwreck (2015).

For playing a kidnapping victim in the drama Room (2015), she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

The 2017 adventure film Kong: Skull Island marked her first big-budget release, after which she starred as Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Captain Marvel (2019).

Larson has since starred in the miniseries Lessons in Chemistry (2023).

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).

Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2019.

For producing the virtual reality series The Messy Truth VR Experience (2020), she won a Primetime Emmy Award.

A gender equality activist and an advocate for sexual assault survivors, Larson is vocal about social and political issues.