Brie Larson wins the Oscar for best actress after only her second lead role, but she’s no newcomer
Brie Larson, winner of lead actress for “Room,” backstage at the Academy Awards on Feb. 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood.
Brie Larson plumbed her dark side portraying a traumatized young mother in the film “Room,” spending weeks isolated in her apartment, immersed in accounts of rape and child sex abuse.
It resulted in an intense, deeply felt performance — and it won Larson an Oscar for lead actress for her role as a sexually abused captive named “Ma,” raising her 5-year-old son in a 10-by-10-foot garden shed.
She high-fived her young costar, Jacob Tremblay, before she went up to accept her statuette and thanked him from the podium for “being my partner in every way through this.” And then Larson showed gratitude for the one group all other winners failed to acknowledge: the audience — especially the ones who went to her difficult movie.
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Jennifer Lawrence
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“The Martian” actor Matt Damon
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Actress Priyanka Chopra
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Taylor Kinney, left, and Lady Gaga arrive at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
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“Titanic” costars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet reunite on the red carpet.
Oscar nominees Cate Blanchett (“Carol”) and Bryan Cranston (“Trumbo”).
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Oscar nominee Rachel McAdams (supporting actress, “Spotlight”).
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From left, actress Margot Robbie, best actor nominee Eddie Redmayne (“The Danish Girl”) and actress Jennifer Garner.
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People protest the all-white slate of acting Oscar nominees and lack of diversity in the industry near the 88th Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center.
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Taylor Kinney, left, and Lady Gaga
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“Director Ridley Scott and Giannina Facio, left, and supporting actor nominee Tom Hardy (“The Revenant”) with Charlotte Riley.
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Supporting actor nominee Tom Hardy (“The Revenant”) with actress Charlotte Riley.
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Best actress nominee Cate Blanchett (“Carol”).
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Nominees and former costars Kate Winslet (supporting actress, “Steve Jobs”) and Leonardo DiCaprio (best actor, “The Revenant”).
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Leonardo DiCaprio
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Actor Christian Bale with wife Sibi Blazic.
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Reese Witherspoon
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Model Heidi Klum
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Model Chrissy Teigen and husband John Legend
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Kerry Washington
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Cinematographer Ed Lachman, Spirit Award winner and Oscar nominee for “Carol.”
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Mindy Kaling
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Jordan’s foreign-language nominee “Theeb” is represented by, from left, director Naji Abu Nowar and actors Jacir Eid and Hassan Mutlag Al-Maraiyeh.
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Sofia Vergara, costar of ABC’s “Modern Family,” on the red carpet.
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Actor Byung-hun Lee.
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Governors Ball chef Wolfgang Puck.
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From left, model Heidi Klum, best actress nominee Saorise Ronan (“Brooklyn”) and last year’s supporting actress winner Patricia Arquette (“Boyhood”).
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“Room’s” young actor Jacob Tremblay shares a stretch of red carpet with “Modern Family’s” Sofia Vergara.
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Original song nominees Jimmy Napes, left, and Sam Smith (“Writing’s on the Wall,” “Spectre”).
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Nominated film editor Hank Corwin (“The Big Short”) and wife Nancy arrive at the 88th Academy Awards.
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Actor Orlando Jones during the arrivals.
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Tobias Lindholm, center, director of Denmark’s foreign-language nominee “A War,” arrives with the film’s lead actor Pilou Asbæk, right.
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“Beasts of No Nation” actor Abraham Attah.
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Morning show host and former NFL player Michael Strahan addresses the media on the red carpet.
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“Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts.
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Composer Carter Burwell, nominated for original score for “Carol.”
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Model Dorith Mous on the red carpet.
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Members of the nominated live-action short feature “Shok” arrive on the red carpet for the 88th Academy Awards.
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Sofia Vergara at the 88th Academy Awards.
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“Beasts of No Nation” costar Abraham Attah arrives at the 88th Academy Awards.
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Orlando Jones arrives for the 88th Academy Awards.
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TV personality Stephanie Bauer on the Oscars red carpet.
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TV personality Giuliana Rancic at the 88th Academy Awards.
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TV personality Maria Menounos at the 88th Academy Awards.
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“Thank you to the moviegoers,” she said. “Thank you for going to the theater and seeing our films. I appreciate it.”
Larson has long been the odds-on favorite to win this year, an ingénue and a relative unknown in a category dominated by motion picture academy favorites including Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlotte Rampling and Saoirse Ronan. “Room” was just Larson’s second leading film role in her two-decade career.
Her performance as Ma in the indie adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s bestselling novel “Room” also earned Larson an Independent Spirit Award, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award and the BAFTA for best actress. The film, meanwhile, earned three other Oscar nominations: for best picture, director and adapted screenplay.
Larson’s big break came with the Showtime series “United States of Tara,” but she emerged as a formidable lead actor in 2013 with the small drama “Short Term 12.”
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The cast of Best Picture winner “Spotlight” takes a selfie backstage at the 88th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre.
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Director Tom McCarthy with the Oscar for best picture, “Spotlight.” (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Actress Stacey Dash speaks onstage during the 88th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on Feb. 28, 2016.
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Michael Keaton and the cast and producers of “Spotlight” celebrate after winning the Oscar for best picture.
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The production team and cast of Spotlight celebrate the award for best picture.
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Leonardo DiCaprio (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Brie Larson (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu, winner of Best Director with Tom Hardy
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Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Lady Gaga performs (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Lady Gaga and abuse survivors (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Daisy Ridley and Dev Patel (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Vice President Joe Biden (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Director Laszlo Nemes (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Chris Rock and Girl Scouts (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Dave Grohl during the In Memoriam segment (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Whoopi Goldberg
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Kate Winslet and Reese Witherspoon (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Kate Winslet and Reese Witherspoon (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Chris Rock (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Mark Rylance (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Mark Rylance thanks Steven Spielberg before accepting his Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
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Patricia Arquette (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Filmmakers Pato Escala Pierart and Gabriel Osorio Vargas (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Jonas Rivera and Pete Docter (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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David White, right, and Mark Mangini (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Marcos Taylor as Suge Knight
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Rachel McAdams and Michael B. Jordan (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Priyanka Chopra, left, and Liev Schreiber (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Margaret Sixel (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Chris Evans, right, and Chadwick Boseman (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Benecio del Toro and Jennifer Garner (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Elka Warden, Lesley Vanderwalt and Damian Martin (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Presenters Margot Robbie and Jared Leto (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Colin Gibson and Lisa Thompson (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Cate Blanchett (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Alicia Vikander (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Adam McKay, front, and Charles Randolph with their Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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Sam Smith (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Sarah Silverman (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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“The Big Short,” the anarchic, bracing broadside against Wall Street malfeasance, won the adapted screenplay Oscar at tonight’s 88th Academy Awards. The script was written by Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, who also directed. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Emily Blunt and Charlize Theron (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Chris Rock (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
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Her performance as a tortured supervisor at a group home for foster kids earned her wide acclaim on the festival circuit and set her on a course for director Lenny Abrahamson’s stark and moving adaptation of “Room.” That performance has catapulted Larson to the lead in Warner Bros.’ $190-million tent-pole “Kong: Skull Island.”
While shooting a climactic escape sequence that had Ma so desperate to free her son that she vomits on him to deceive her captor into thinking the child is sick enough for a hospital, then pretending the boy has died and rolling him inside a rug so his body can be removed, the actor lost contact with reality entirely.
“You become so bizarrely present and in a moment and everything becomes so surreally real you don’t have any conscious awareness of what you’re doing,” she told The Times recently.
Critics raved over Larson’s raw chemistry with Tremblay, her ability to draw him out and cultivate a believable rapport. Especially striking were her fluid transitions between nurturing young mother, petulant daughter and haunted survivor.
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Brie Larson and Alicia Vikander backstage (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet backstage (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Leonardo DiCaprio backstage (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Leonardo DiCaprio with his Oscar for best actor (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Brie Larson celebrates (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu backstage (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Brie Larson (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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The cast of Best Picture “Spotlight” take a selfie backstage. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Lady Gaga (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Brie Larson (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Sacha Baron Cohen (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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A Secret Service watches Vice President Joe Biden backstage (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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C3PO (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Kevin Hart (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Kate Winslet (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Mark Rylance (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Cheryl Boone Issacs (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Backstage at the 88th Academy Awards (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Vice President Joe Biden (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Andrew Whitehurst and Mark Ardington (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy accept the award for Original Screenplay for “Spotlight.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Paul Norris and Sara Bennett (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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R2D2 and C3PO (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Oscar statuettes (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Charlize Theron (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Sam Smith (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Adam McKay (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Alicia Vikander (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Charlize Theron (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Adam McKay and Charles Randolph (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Alicia Vikander (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Emmanuel Lubezki (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Benicio Del Toro and Jennifer Garner (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
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Liev Schreiber and Priyanka Chopra (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)
Her performance was particularly notable because Larson’s career was built largely on comic supporting roles that emphasized her looks. She was the sexy rebel teen in “United States of Tara,” Jonah Hill’s love interest in “21 Jump Street” and Michael Cera’s bombshell ex-girlfriend in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.” Late last summer, Larson played a suburban mom opposite Amy Schumer in “Trainwreck.”
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Larson, 26, is anything but an overnight success. She was a child actor, the oldest daughter of a single mom, who worked steadily on TV and flirted with a career in pop music as a teenager. Yet when she described those early years to The Times, the Sacramento native sounded almost ambivalent about fame.
“I worried that being the lead meant that the movie was about me,” she said. “And I wanted things to be about somebody else. Another cause. I don’t really enjoy the attention to be on me.”
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For the Record
Feb. 29, 3:30 p.m.: An earlier version of this article referred to HBO’s series “United States of Tara.” It aired on Showtime.
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