Cover Story: Brie Larson, Hollywood’s Most Independent Young Star
Since taking home 2016’s best-actress Academy Award, Brie Larson has covered all the cinematic bases—Kong: Skull Island, this month’s Free Fire, the upcoming The Glass Castle—directed Unicorn Store, and signed on as Captain Marvel, the first female superhero to get her own Marvel Studios movie. Inside Larson’s years of scraping by, the awards-season madness, and the group that supported her, including Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone.
I’d go with Reese Witherspoon, but at 41 would she qualify as young? In my eyes, yes, but not necessarily Hollywood’s, I guess. The Ringer has a nice look at her roles (though they left out Freeway, dammit!).
The tricky word here is “star”. I love your pick of Tilda Swinton, Kemper, but in the (paraphrased) words of Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year, she’s an actor, not a star.
Reese Witherspoon is also a good pick, particularly if you’ve seen how she can transcend her romcom roots in Wild while making fun of her own image in Hot Pursuit (yes, I saw Hot Pursuit). But the term “star” seems like an ephemeral thing. Doesn’t the moniker of “star” come and go with the times? And, yeah, Hollywood stops calling you young after you’ve turned 24. :)
But, really, it’s just an attention getting superlative in the headline of a typical celebrity profile. Without knowing the ins and outs of someone’s career, her relationship with her agent, how much cachet she has with producers, etc., I have no idea how independent anyone is. But given where she is with her career, Brie Larson is as good a pick as any. I don’t see Emma Stone in any box office blockbusters these days.
Up next, Hailee Steinfeld? Please, Hollywood?
-Tom
P.S. Brie Larson is a beautiful woman, but I’m not sure those overdone glamour shots in the Vanity Fair capture that. If anything, they genericize her beauty (is that a word? genericize?). The most stunning photo is the relatively subdued one next to the blurb about her Reddit AMA.
Your defining “star” very broadly. She is a successful actress(and very good) who gets plenty of work but a star IMO is someone who can headline a film like JLaw or Scarlett Johansson.
This. She doesn’t do a lot of Indies, but she made Under the Skin possible and was excellent in it. Even if she only does Avengers movies from now on, i will be eternally grateful for UTS.
In terms of being able and willing to choose their own roles, while also being massive celebrities, it’s hard to see how it isn’t either Johansson or Lawrence.
Those were the first two who came to mind. I haven’t been all that impressed with Lawrence’s work as of late but then I understand her desire to grab the blockbuster dollars while she can, especially as a woman in Hollywood, and after watching Winter’s Bone, I know she has skills. You can only carry a thin script so far. Of course Johansson has hitched her wagon to the Marvel money train so clearly she is in a similar situation.
Saoirse Ronan gets my vote. I think she’s brilliant, and she’s carried both action movies and dramas almost single-handedly. She was also in Robot Chicken, which shows a certain willingness to do odd stuff :)
I was going to make a wisecrack about how they’re old hags, but Larson is older than Lawrence! I can only assume they wanted to profile someone different than those two for a change.
I’m confused. What is the definition of independent stars? Are there movie stars who are dependent? Are we talking about actresses who mainly do indie movies?
Historically, it meant they could choose their own roles (in the old studio days). Nowadays, I suspect that it means more like they can get a project done that the studios don’t necessarily believe in.
They were both fine, although Hiddleston really seemed to largely vanish once they hit Skull Island, which was disappointing for an actor who normally has a lot of charisma. Larson badly overacted and largely looked ridiculous. That may be because she’s less used to acting in movies with ridiculous crap supposedly happening around her, unlike them. I haven’t seen Short Term 12 though and it sounds like she has a lot of fans here, so maybe she’s better in more grounded dramas.
