Brie Larson
(born October 1, 1989,
Sacramento
,
California
, U.S.) is an American actress whose
compelling
and understated performance as a young woman who has been kidnapped and held prisoner by a sexual predator in the independent
film
Room
(2015) won her an
Academy Award
.
Larson was mostly
homeschooled
by her parents, who also encouraged her early theatrical ambitions. She made her public debut as a young child in a parody commercial on
The Tonight Show
with
Jay Leno
. She also acted in guest roles on other TV shows, including an appearance in 1999 on
Touched by an Angel
, during her childhood, and she appeared as a daughter of the title character in the 2001?02 sitcom
Raising Dad
. In 2003 Larson was cast as a teen drag racer in the
Disney
Channel TV movie
Right on Track
, and in 2005 she recorded an album of teen
pop music
,
Finally Out of P.E.
Britannica Quiz
Oscar-Worthy Movie Trivia
Larson was once again cast as the daughter of the title character in the critically praised 2009?11 TV series
United States of Tara
. During that time she also won notice in a small part in the film
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
(2010). Larson played teenagers in the crime thriller
Rampart
(2011) and the comedy
21 Jump Street
(2012) before
undertaking
both her first starring role and her first adult role, as a supervisor in a group home for troubled teens, in
Short Term 12
(2013). She acted with
Mark Wahlberg
in
The Gambler
(2014) and with
Amy Schumer
in
Trainwreck
(2015) before her breakthrough in
Room
. In addition to an Oscar, Larson also won a
Golden Globe Award
and a BAFTA Award for her work in the film, which was based on a 2010
novel by Emma Donoghue.
In 2017 the highly sought-after Larson starred in a number of films, notably the
King Kong
remake
Kong: Skull Island
and
The Glass Castle
, a
drama
about a dysfunctional family. That year she also made her directorial debut with
Unicorn Store
, in which she starred as a twentysomething obsessed with
unicorns
. She later played Carol Danvers, a
U.S. Air Force
pilot who becomes a
superhero
, in
Captain Marvel
and
Avengers: Endgame
, both 2019. Larson’s other credits that year included the drama
Just Mercy
, about a civil-rights attorney’s efforts to free an innocent man on
death row
.