Brie Larson

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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. After failing to get cast as Wendy Darling in the 2003 film Peter Pan, Larson wrote and recorded a song titled "Invisible Girl", which received airplay on KIIS-FM. She soon signed a record deal with Tommy Mottola of Casablanca Records; she and Lindsay Lohan were the only artists signed by the label at the time. In 2005, she released the album Finally Out of P.E., for which she also co-wrote songs with other songwriters, including Blair Daly, Pam Sheyne, Lindy Robbins, and Holly Brook. She titled it after a gym teacher she disliked and has said the songs she wrote were mostly about failed job opportunities. One of her singles, "She Said", was featured on the MTV series Total Request Live, was listed by Billboard in their weekly listings of the most-played videos in the channel, and peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot Single Sales.
Larson went on tour with Jesse McCartney for Teen Peoples "Rock in Shop" mall concerts, opened for him during his Beautiful Soul tour, and also performed in New York City at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Even so, the album was not a success, selling only 3,500 copies. Larson later admitted to being disillusioned with her music career, saying, "I wanted to write all my own songs, and the were afraid of that. I wanted to wear sneakers and play my guitarthey wanted heels and wind blown hair."

In 2006, Larson was cast alongside Logan Lerman and Cody Linley in the comedy film Hoot, about young vigilantes trying to save a group of owls. It received poor reviews, but Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle was appreciative of Larson and Linley for bringing "a dash of Indiana Jones to their roles". She had a small part, the following year, in the Amber Heard-starring drama Remember the Daze, and she launched an arts and literature magazine, Bunnies and Traps, for which she wrote her own opinion columns and accepted submissions from other artists and writers.

At the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2010, Larson appeared in a stage production of Thornton Wilder's play Our Town. Directed by Nicholas Martin, it featured her in the role of Emily Webb, a precocious young girl. Reviewing the play for The Boston Globe, Louise Kennedy thought the production had glossed over the play's darker themes and bemoaned the lack of tragic arc in Larson's character. In film, she featured in Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Greenberg and Edgar Wright's comedy Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. A journalist for Slant Magazine opined that these films helped raise her profile, and Larson has said the latter film, in which she played a rock star named Envy Adams, marked a turning point in her career. In it, Larson performed the song "Black Sheep" with the band Metric. Although it did not fare well commercially, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has since developed a cult following. She next played the troubled daughter of a corrupt cop (played by Woody Harrelson) in the drama Rampart (2011), an emotionally intense part she found herself unable to detach from. A confrontation scene between Harrelson and her proved upsetting for her; the director was surprised by how well it turned out and tweaked the script to further explore the father-daughter relationship.

In 2012, Larson expanded into filmmaking by co-writing and co-directing the short film The Arm with Jessie Ennis and Sarah Ramos. The film, about societal expectations in the near future, won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival. She featured as a seductive teenager in the critically panned drama The Trouble with Bliss, after which she played Molly, a high school student, in 21 Jump Street, an adaptation of the 1980s police procedural television series, co-starring Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Larson found her acting style to be more rigid than Hill's approach and was challenged by scenes that required her to improvise with him. Dana Stevens of Slate labeled Larson "a find of major proportions", adding that "she's not only beautiful but funny, with a scratchy contralto voice, and unlike the usual female in a buddy movie, she comes across as a real person". With a worldwide gross of over $200 million, 21 Jump Street proved to be Larson's most widely seen film to that point.

Following an appearance in the sitcom Community, Larson collaborated with Dustin Bowser to co-write and co-direct Weighting (2013), a short film about a strained relationship, which was screened at South by Southwest. Larson's breakthrough came in the same year when she starred in Destin Daniel Cretton's critically acclaimed independent drama Short Term 12, which marked the first leading role of her career. Set in a group home for troubled teenagers, the film featured her as Grace, the emotionally distressed supervisor of the institution. To prepare, Larson interacted with staff in a children's home and watched online interviews of people with similar jobs. The film had a production budget of under $1 million, and she was pleased with its intimate and collaborative work environment. Larson's performance was acclaimed by critics. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times found her "terrific" and "completely persuasive", and Ian Freer of Empire stated that she "builds into a whirling dervish of a performance, making Grace strong but scarred, damaged but compassionate". Jenny McCartney of The Daily Telegraph predicted that it would "mark her out for a stellar career". Larson received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead; she later remarked that the film prompted directors to offer her a wide variety of parts, but she turned down roles of the unidimensional love interest.

Also in 2013, Larson had supporting roles in two romantic dramas, Don Jon and The Spectacular Now. In the former, written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, she played the sister of Don Jon (played by Gordon-Levitt). Peter Travers of Rolling Stone praised the film's exploration of sexual themes and found Larson to be "terrific" in it. In The Spectacular Now, starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, she played Cassidy, the ex-girlfriend of Teller's character. Larson was drawn to the realism she found in the project's depiction of high school experiences. Writing for New York magazine, David Edelstein called upon viewers to admire "the shading and intelligence she brings to Cassidy". The 2014 crime drama The Gambler, based on the 1974 film of the same name, featured Larson as a literature student who has an affair with her professor (played by Mark Wahlberg), a gambling addict. The director Rupert Wyatt felt the role was underwritten and cast Larson to lend heft to it. Even so, Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote that the "talented Larson is given little to do, other than react".

Larson then starred in Room, a film adaptation of Emma Donoghue's novel of the same name. It featured her as Ma, a young woman held in captivity, who bears a child of rape. The role proved physically and emotionally taxing for her, and she modeled it on her mother's struggle as a single parent. A large portion of the film was shot inside a 10 ft × 10 ft shed created in a studio, and Larson prepared herself by spending a month isolated in her apartment. She interacted with specialists on sexual abuse and researched the lack of nutrition that a person in captivity would suffer. To achieve the look, she stayed away from sunlight, modified her diet, and exercised extensively to lose weight. Larson collaborated closely with co-star Jacob Tremblay, who played her son, and spent time performing activities that mirrored those of their characters. Room was critically acclaimed, with major emphasis on the performances of Larson and Tremblay. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times called her performance "astonishing", stating that the "reality and preternatural commitment she brings to Ma is piercingly honest from start to finish, as scaldingly emotional a performance as anyone could wish for". She won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actress, as well as a Golden Globe and BAFTA in the same category.

Following the success of Room, Larson played a leading role in Free Fire (2016), an action-comedy about a shootout in a warehouse. She agreed to the project to call attention to gun violence. Eric Kohn of IndieWire noted how different Larson's role was from that in Room and added that her "businesslike demeanor once again proves her ability to command a scene with a single glare". Commercially, the film failed to recoup its $7 million investment. She had filmed a part in Todd Solondz's comedy Wiener-Dog, but her scenes were deleted from the final cut as Solondz found her character inessential to the story. The following year, Larson starred alongside Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson in the second installment of the MonsterVerse franchise, entitled . Shot in Vietnam, the film featured her as a photojournalist in the 1970s. It marked her first mainstream big-budget release, and while she was glad to play a role not defined by her looks, she bemoaned the lack of female co-stars. Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post praised the film's visual effects and remarked that "Larson manages to hold her own with very little to do". Kong: Skull Island was a commercial success, grossing over $566 million worldwide.

Later in 2017, Larson portrayed Jeannette Walls in The Glass Castle, an adaptation of Walls' memoir, which reunited her with Destin Daniel Cretton. It tells the story of a young woman's relationship with her nonconformist parents (played by Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts). Larson was drawn to the complex depiction of a parent-child relationship and identified with its theme of forgiveness. She collaborated closely with Walls and her siblings and observed their mannerisms. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian disliked the film's sentimentality but noted that "it is saved, just a little, by the robustness of Brie Larson's presence". Also poorly received was the India-set musical romance Basmati Blues, a project she had filmed in 2013, which received criticism on social media for its white savior narrative. The 2017 Toronto International Film Festival marked the release of Larson's feature film directorial debut, the comedy-drama Unicorn Store, in which she also starred. It was later picked for digital distribution by Netflix in 2019. She played a disillusioned art student fascinated with unicorns. Larson had unsuccessfully auditioned in 2012 to star in the film when Miguel Arteta was attached to direct. After the production was stalled, Larson was offered to direct and star in it. She was drawn to the fanciful narrative and found a connection between her character's journey and her experience as a director. David Ehrlich of IndieWire disliked the film but took note of Larson's potential as a filmmaker.

After a year-long absence from the screen, Larson starred as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Captain Marvel (2019), which marked Marvel Studios' first female-led film. She was initially skeptical about taking on such a high-profile role, but later accepted the part after viewing it as a platform to empower young women and found a connection with the character's flaws and humanity. In preparation, she underwent nine months of judo, boxing and wrestling training, and interacted with service personnel at the Nellis Air Force Base. Stephanie Zacharek of Time wrote that "Larson, a perceptive, low-key actor, carries the whole affair capably" and took note of how much she stood out in the film's quieter moments; David Sims of The Atlantic bemoaned the lack of depth in her role, but credited the actress for effectively portraying her character's struggle for independence from authoritarian men. Larson reprised her role in , which she had filmed before Captain Marvel. Endgame grossed $2.79 billion worldwide to briefly become the highest-grossing film of all time, and Captain Marvel became the first female-led superhero film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

Also in 2019, Larson teamed with Destin Daniel Cretton for the third time in Just Mercy, based on Bryan Stevenson's memoir about death row inmate Walter McMillian's wrongful conviction, starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. She agreed to take on the supporting part of Eva Ansley, an advocate for the Equal Justice Initiative, to lend her support to Cretton's storytelling. Owen Gleiberman of Variety took note of how well she channeled her character's "antsy, cigarette-smoking defensiveness."