Actress Brie Larson Finds Light Within The Darkness Of 'Room'

Transcript

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Our guest, Brie Larson, stars in the new film "Room," which won the Audience Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and opened nationwide in theaters last week. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the film is about a woman who is kidnapped at age 17 and has been held captive for seven years in a small backyard shed, where she's been raped and impregnated by her abductor. When the movie begins, she's raising her 5-year-old son who has never been outside the shed. It's difficult for Larson's character, who's known as Ma, to protect her son and keep him safe and happy. But she manages to do it. In the second half of the film, after they've escaped, it remains difficult for her to feel like she's safe and capable of giving her son what he needs. It may sound like a hard film to watch, but our film critic David Edelstein called it astonishing. Larson has also been in the films "Trainwreck," "21 Jump Street," "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World," as well as the TV show, "The United States Of Tara." FRESH AIR producer Ann Marie Baldonado spoke with Brie Larson. They started with a scene from "Room." Ma has raised her son Jack, played by Jacob Tremblay, to believe that the room in which they're held captive is the whole world. But now she's slowly trying to tell him the truth.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROOM")

BRIE LARSON: (As Ma) Do you remember how - do you remember how Alice wasn't always in Wonderland?

JACOB TREMBLAY: (As Jack) She fell down, down, down deep in a hole.

LARSON: (As Ma) Right, well, I wasn't always in Room. I'm like Alice. I was a little girl named Joy.

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) No.

LARSON: (As Ma) And I lived in a house with my mom and my dad. You would call them grandma and grandpa.

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) What house?

LARSON: (As Ma) A house. It was in the world. And there was a backyard, and we had a hammock. We would swing in the hammock. And we would eat ice cream.

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) TV house?

LARSON: (As Ma) No, Jack, a real house. Not TV. Are you even listening to me? When I was a little older - when I was 17 - I was walking home from school...

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) Where was I?

LARSON: (As Ma) You were still up in heaven. There was a guy. He pretended that his dog was sick.

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) What guy?

LARSON: (As Ma) Old Nick. We call him Old Nick. I don't know what his real name is. But he pretended his dog was sick...

TREMBLAY: (As Ma) What's the dog's name?

LARSON: (As Ma) Jack, there wasn't a dog. He was trying to trick me, OK? There wasn't a dog. Old Nick stole me.

TREMBLAY: (As Jack) I want a different story.

LARSON: (As Ma) No, this is the story that you get.

ANN MARIE BALDONADO, BYLINE: Brie Larson, welcome to FRESH AIR.

LARSON: Thank you for having me.

BALDONADO: Now, you were an actor as a child. And you started acting around the same age that Jacob was when he made the movie. Was there anything that you remember about how people treated you back then that you wanted to make sure you did with Jacob?

LARSON: Yeah, well, I remembered the times that I was talked to like a person and the times that I was talked to like a kid. I really had a passion for acting at Jacob's age. And I wanted to do real things. I didn't want to do a fish stick commercial. I wanted to do monologues, and I wanted to cry. And I really wanted to, like, express emotion. And I felt frustrated when I was reduced to being a child. I wanted to be a creative force, just like everybody else. So that was something that I was really aware of in meeting Jacob and realizing that acting is not a game for him. Acting is something that he really cares a lot about, that he is very committed to.

BALDONADO: Conversely, was there anything that you wanted to make sure you avoided? Did you have any bad experiences that you wanted to make sure...?

LARSON: As a kid?

BALDONADO: Yeah.

LARSON: I have had directors, from being a kid up until adulthood, that really want you to hit your low point. They get sort of excited about breaking you emotionally. They think that that's interesting to watch on camera, the sort of - but it turns into melodrama, in my opinion. And so after a couple of experiences like that, I became very clear with myself that that's not what I'm interested in. And so making sure that I work with directors that don't think that acting is torturing yourself, it's much more delicate. It's not about shattering yourself to pieces. There's a more refined way of looking at it and a much more humane way of looking at it. And I don't like to be tricked. Some directors like to egg you on with it. You know, they'll find out maybe a story from your past that you opened up to them about. And then when you're in the midst of doing a dark scene, they'll whisper it into your ear - you know, remember that time that that thing happened to you - and they really like to get in under your skin. And I don't think it works like that. I think it also means you're going towards a certain drama that's not honestly happening.

BALDONADO: You did a lot of research before you even started filming "Room." You talked to experts about solitary confinement and imprisonment. What did you learn from that that you brought to your character? What was the most interesting and surprising?

LARSON: Well, what I was curious about was the two years that Ma is in Room before her son is born, and it's just her sitting there alone. And she's 17, 18, 19 years old and has zero stimulation. There's nothing in Room. And I found that time interesting because at 17, 18, 19, I feel like that's the time when all you want to do is run away. You just want to move out of the house - or perhaps you already have - and you're going to college, and you're feeding yourself. You don't want to listen to anybody. And it's all about you, you, you. And I found it fascinating that instead, this woman had to sit with herself. She didn't have the ability to run away from anything. And for me, it reminded me, in particular, of my childhood, of - it was me and my mom, and I was 7. My sister was, like, 3 or 4. And we lived in a room that wasn't that much bigger than Room, with a bed that came out of the wall, and it was like a Murphy bed. And if the bed was down, then there was no other space to walk around in the room. It meant that the whole room was a trampoline. And we had very few things. And I've always remembered that time as being one of the greatest times of my life, the time that I felt the greatest sense of freedom, so much curiosity, exploration. My mom has an incredible imagination, and so everything was a game. And it wasn't until I was much older - much later in my life - that I realized that this was all because my dad had asked for a divorce. And my mom packed up our car and moved us from Sacramento to Los Angeles very quickly, with only a couple thousand dollars in her pocket, having no idea what was going to happen, who she was anymore, where we were going to live. And instead, she created this world of imagination that was so full, I had no recollection that anything bad was happening. And I think because this was such a strong imaginative world that she had created for me and my sister, it was one that she could live in, as well. She could step into it, and it gave her a break from her adult mind spinning out of control. So because of that, I felt really strongly that there was a way to tell the story of "Room" in a way that was relatable, that it was plausible, that life could be made out of this small space with these circumstances.

GROSS: We're listening to the interview FRESH AIR producer Ann Marie Baldonado recorded with Brie Larson, who stars in the new film "Room." We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR producer Ann Marie Baldonado recorded with Brie Larson, who stars in the new film, "Room."

BALDONADO: OK, you started acting when you were young. You even moved to Los Angeles with your mom and your sister when you were a kid to pursue acting. What made you want to be an actor?

LARSON: I don't know. My parents were chiropractors. They had a practice together. We lived in Sacramento. My grandparents worked at Dow Chemical. My uncle's a dentist. I had nobody in my family that was even remotely in the entertainment industry. And as a kid, I was just so painfully shy. I couldn't make eye contact, just a nervous wreck on the first day of school, impossible to make friends, always just very scared. And when I told my mom, at 6, while she was doing the dishes, that I wanted to be an actor, she was just floored and did not know what to make of it and thought that surely I was repeating something that I had heard someone else say. But I was just adamant. My mom says that I just wouldn't shut up about it and just kept saying, I really want to take acting lessons. And so she agreed. She said OK, well, if you get private lessons once a week for a year, then we can see - maybe we'll take another step with it. And by the time that year was up, I was performing monologues for people, and I was in local plays. And I was really opening up.

BALDONADO: You did sitcoms. You did some kids movies. And you also had a music career. You have a great singing voice. You sing a little bit in "Room," and you sing in some other films. And you had a record contract, and you're kind of on the track to have a successful music career. But you kind of decided that you didn't want to go that route. Can you talk about how it happened and why you decide it wasn't for you?

LARSON: Basically, we had a musical guest that was on this sitcom that I was on. And her manager, like, literally overheard me playing, like, in my dressing room and with my guitar, and gave me her card and was like, I'd like to represent you. Like, do you write songs? And I ended up working with these producers and writing a couple of songs to the tracks. They would give me, like, the music and I would take it over the weekend, and I would write the lyrics and melody. And then I'd come back and we would record it. I mean, very quickly, I got a manager, and then he wanted to put the song on serious rotation. But I didn't even have a record deal. And suddenly these record companies were calling going, who is this? And they met with me, and I was, like, 12 or 13. I was so young. And so initially, Universal signed me as a songwriter. And they'd fly me and my mom around to work with different songwriters. And I got to write songs with, you know, the guy who wrote "Genie In A Bottle" and, like, all of my favorite pop songs. And slowly, I think that the label got nervous because I obviously wasn't some hit songwriter. And so they wanted to bring in other writers to come in. And I didn't like their songs, and they didn't sound like me or what I believed in. And I loved music because it was an opportunity for me to express my personal self - it was a step away from acting 'cause I wasn't playing a character. But really, they were trying to turn me into this weird character cartoon of myself. And it just didn't feel right. So after some arguments with the label, I just said I didn't want to do it anymore and left it behind.

BALDONADO: Well, just so that our listeners can hear a little bit of your singing voice, I want to play...

LARSON: Oh, great. Fantastic (laughter).

BALDONADO: No (laughter), I want to play a clip from the 2009 movie "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World." This isn't the music from back then.

LARSON: I was like, oh, great, let's go back to when I'm 12 (laughter).

BALDONADO: No (laughter), but this - I mean, if people haven't caught this movie, it's a great Edgar Wright film. And it's an adaptation of a graphic novel and stars Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim. And you play Envy, kind of this [expletive], mean ex-girlfriend who is also, now, a famous pop star. Let's take a listen to this song.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD")

LARSON: (As Envy Adams) (Singing) Hello again, friend of a friend. I knew you when our common goal was waiting for the world to end. Now that the truth is just a rule that you can bend. You crack the whip, shape-shift and trick the past again. I'll send you my love on a wire. Lift you up every time everyone, oh, pulls away.

BALDONADO: That's a clip from the 2005 film "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World." You've been acting for 20 years now. And you said that when you're acting for that long, sometimes it can get confusing. And you said something along the lines of sometimes the stories inside you aren't actually yours. It's hard to remember what was a role and what wasn't. Can you talk a little bit about that?

LARSON: Yeah. Well, it's an interesting process because the - I think the brain just wants to help you so much that it latches onto things, and it'll put things at the forefront of your brain. So, for instance, with "Room," as I was prepping in those eight months, things like my wrists had to be sore. And so I started wiring my brain to think that my wrist was sore so that by the time we started shooting, I didn't have to remember, oh, my wrist is sore, I can't do that. I just almost felt it like a phantom pain in my wrist. And you do that with all sorts of things. And you do it as a way so that when you're on set and you can be in the moment, you can listen to the other person and you can almost surprise yourself with what your reactions are. You don't have to think, oh, I can't do that because my wrist hurts or I can't chew like that 'cause I've got that bad tooth or I'm really sluggish and tired 'cause I don't have vitamin D, you just - you inhabit it. And so all of those things, the brain is quickly going, oh, let's put that stuff right at the front so that Brie can really access it right away. But then when the movie's done, you have to clean house and rewire your brain again. And the funny thing was, even with - like, the wrist thing in particular was an interesting one because the next movie I did was sort of an action movie where I had a gun. And I kept - for the first, like, month of shooting, I kept having the phantom pain in my wrist where I thought, oh, I can't grab that with this wrist 'cause it's hurt. And I had to keep going, no, that's not true. That's just from thinking that you had that for almost a year.

BALDONADO: Brie Larson, thank you for coming onto FRESH AIR.

LARSON: Thanks so much.

GROSS: Brie Larson spoke with FRESH AIR producer Ann Marie Baldonado. Larson stars in the new film, "Room." Tomorrow on FRESH AIR...

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It's “Weekend Update” with Colin Jost and Michael Che.

GROSS: I'll talk with Colin Jost and Michael Che about co-anchoring Weekend Update. Jost has also served as "Saturday Night Live's" head writer. Che was briefly a correspondent on "The Daily Show." I hope you'll join us. I'm Terry Gross. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.