Brie Larson on how Avengers: Endgame celebrates the powerful women in the MCU

Brie Larson has dubbed it a “big feminist movie”. As Captain Marvel hit the US$1 billion mark, and became the most successful film in the franchise’s history, she says playing the character has changed her for the better.

Much has been made of Brie Larson’s blazing entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the first woman to solo headline a movie in what has become the most successful film franchise in history.

When Captain Marvel, which Larson herself called “a big feminist movie”, was released last month it was an immediate critical and financial success, becoming the year’s highest grossing movie so far and providing the best kind of vindication against the knuckle-dragging online trolls who tried to sink the film before they had even seen a frame.

Brie Larson. Picture: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for Disney

‘I don’t feel like it’s been a boy’s club,’ Larson says. Picture: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images for Disney

But as Larson prepares for the release of hugely secretive Avengers: Endgame, the sequel to last year’s Infinity War and supposedly the conclusion to the 21 films in the MCU so far, the Oscar-winning actress politely but firmly slaps down the notion that she had somehow rescued a testosterone-driven franchise by injecting a sorely needed feminine touch.

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In fact, despite five of the original Avengers — with the exception of Scarlett Johansson’s super-spy Black Widow — being men, Larson says she prefers to focus on the wealth of existing strong female characters.

“I don’t feel like it’s been a boys club,” she says, sitting in a Korean hotel room alongside Jeremy Renner, who returns to Endgame as master marksman Hawkeye after being conspicuously absent in Infinity War. “I feel like we have so many great characters — we have the Wasp, Scarlet Witch, all the amazing ladies from Wakanda, Pepper Potts, all the Guardians ladies — there are actually quite a lot.”

But even when Renner begs to differ, pointing out that most of the women in the franchise have been in supporting roles to the likes of Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Captain America, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor and Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk, Larson is having none of it.

Larson with her Avengers: Endgame co-stars Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man) and Jeremey Renner (Hawkeye) as the Asian press day in Seoul, Korea. Picture: AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon

“I’m not into that,” she says. “That’s not right. I feel like they are all really strong, powerful characters and I am happy to be joining them. That’s all.”

Certainly Larson is aware of the impact of Captain Marvel, who Marvel boss Kevin Feige has called the most powerful character in the in MCU, has had on the hearts and minds of superhero fans around the world. The message of never-say-die female empowerment and finding untold inner strength resonated across the board, but particularly with young women. But the 29-year-old, who won the Best Actress Oscar for Room in 2016, is quick to point out that the character — originally created as air force officer Carol Danvers by the late comics guru Stan Lee in 1967 and re-imagined as a female superhero a decade later — is to thank rather than her.

“It’s cool to represent something,” she says. “I feel now like Captain Marvel is now a symbol of something — you can wear it, you can own it and you can find your own strength in it. And I feel like that is such an incredible gift. But I don’t feel any sense of personal responsibility or ownership of that, I just feel like I am the conduit for the symbol.”

That said, she says that she used to call herself an “introverted asthmatic” and credits her intense training to play the character for changing her body, voice and mindset for the better. That, along with the platform the Marvel has given her, has helped the already outspoken actor feel more confident in voicing her opinions on gender equity in Hollywood. She recently expressed exasperation that people were surprised when Captain Marvel passed the $US1 billion mark and urged women everywhere to be brave and fight for the pay they deserve.

“I feel like learning to embody Carol and particularly the training and getting physically strong for myself definitely helped me grow more into myself and into my womanhood,” she says. “But I have always been pretty outspoken about things. That’s not a new version of me.”

Larson shot her first scenes as Captain Marvel for Endgame, joining the biggest cast of superheroes ever assembled on film, many of whom were shockingly turned to dust at the end of Infinity War after the purple-skinned villain Thanos (James Brolin) obtained all of the powerful Infinity Stones and obliterated half of all life in the universe.

Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, who studio boss Kevin Feige has described as the most powerful character in the MCU.

While there are few who believe that all the heroes who died in “the Snap” will stay dead — Spider-man has another movie coming out in July and there are also believed to be future chapters in store for Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange and the Guardians Of the Galaxy — both Larson and Renner are almost hilariously evasive when it comes to any specifics of Endgame.

“We can tell you that it was made by Marvel Studios, it’s called Avengers: Endgame and it’s in cinemas soon,” she says, with the hint of a smirk at the absurdity of trying to talk about a movie she’s not allowed to talk about.

“And Thanos is ugly,” offers Renner. “He just has an ugly soul.”

Then when asked about the tantalising interplay between Captain Marvel and Hemsworth’s Thor revealed in the trailer, all she can add is: “I can say that it appears they were in the same room at one time. And they were making eye contact.”

Jeremy Renner returns to the MCU as Hawkeye in Avengers: Endgame after sitting out the last film, Infinity War.

For Renner, who is equally coy on why Hawkeye sat out the events of Infinity War, rumours that he returns to action as the assassin Ronin and the likelihood of a spin-off TV series for the character, coming back to the Avengers set was a kind of homecoming. With the exception of Ruffalo, all the original six Avengers from Joss Whedon’s first superhero team-up in 2012 recently got tattoos of the figure 6, and Renner says that the bond forged between them on the time-consuming, physically demanding films is the tightest he has ever formed in his long, twice Oscar-nominated career.

“We have been through a lot together,” he says. “There have been marriages and divorces and kids — we all have children now, except for Evans. There has been a lot that we have gone through shared experience wise, that you don’t really share with anyone else. There have been some very pivotal moments for me in my life that included all of them.

“We got tattoos to represent what that friendship means and what that bond is and that’s the most wonderful takeaway from these 21 movies. They are lifelong friendships and there is nothing more lasting or more powerful than the love I have for them.”

Avengers: Endgame opens on Wednesday.

Originally published as Brie Larson on how Avengers: Endgame celebrates the powerful women in the MCU