http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/why-short-term-12-is-a-good-cry-movie.html
http://www.criterion.com/explore/180-brie-larson-s-top-10
http://www.ioncinema.com/interviews/ioncinephile-of-the-month/destin-daniel-cretton
http://www.undertheradarmag.com/news/actress_brie_larson_discusses_short_term_12_and_don_jon/
http://www.hitfix.com/immaculate-noise/brie-larson-talks-short-term-12-musical-basmati-blues-and-letting-go-interview
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/miles-teller-and-brie-larson-on-first-loves-and-first-drinks/#_
http://artonair.org/show/brie-larson-short-term-12-don-john?page=39
http://badassdigest.com/2013/09/16/brie-larson-talks-short-term-12-being-a-better-person-and-loving-pimples/
(At the end of the day, we want to watch those human beings be human beings, and there's something so beautiful about the pimples that are on my face. I love 'em. Sometimes it takes -- I mean, I hope it doesn't take everybody being in a movie to figure that out. I feel stupid that it took me so long, but I feel like I found a more comfortable in my own skin person through the act of removing everything.
...
I'm not making movies because I really love my face and I love the sound of my voice. It has nothing to do with me at all. It has everything to do with wanting to service these characters and these points of view and these slices of life as best as I can. And try and get some voices heard through the process. That's the main criteria for me. I'm just the vessel.)
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/25/brie-larson-on-short-term-12-one-of-the-year-s-best-films.html
http://tribecafilm.com/features/brie-larson-short-term-12-interview
Tribeca: All the characters in Short Term 12 use art as an outlet to express themselves and to vent their frustrations. Do you use art in the same way?
BL: Oh absolutely. That is how I’ve been able to, since as far as I can remember, visualize and work through and explain things when I don’t have the words. You start to realize that there’s a huge flaw with written language and the thing that transcends it all are these colors and symbolism and emotions that are not tangible. I think art is such a powerful outlet. I truly believe that every person is an artist and a storyteller; just some are more interested in accepting that about themselves than others.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/short-term-12s-brie-larson-612681
http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/exclusive-clip-interview-brie-larson-grapples-short-term-230844999.html - i'm grace.
About the small little things -- you strike me as a performer who has this innate ability to be so natural on camera. I don’t see the work.
I think I feel like it just has taken a lot of time of being broken down and breaking myself down. I realize, actually strangely though this movie, that I’ve felt more comfortable expressing my emotions with a camera there than in my personal life. And I didn’t understand why that was and I had a hard time letting go. I’m much better at getting into the character than getting out of the character. I’m just really fascinated by human beings and by life. Pretty much every character that I’ve ever played has been based off of either somebody that I’ve seen in passing or a combination of people that I know, but I always base it off of a reality, something I can actually grasp and turn to and look at. And you just got to be comfortable in your own skin I guess.
I feel like it’s just the listening and giving -- it seems to work. And once I was able to kind of unlock that for myself I became leaps and bounds a better actor, when it became more about the things when I wasn’t saying. I feel lucky that I’ve worked with other good actors. When you’re an actor who likes to listen and you’re working with another actor who’s very present, it becomes a very symbiotic, beautiful relationship. But you have to work really hard before the film starts and it has to mean everything, and you also have to be completely willing to question yourself, and the desire to want others to kind of question and think as well has to come into it.
Whenever it becomes about capturing a moment of time when you’re young and beautiful, I think that then it’s lost and it has no lasting power any more. It’s just egotistical and not about the point at all. I’m just the vessel for a story you know. It will be a different conversation we’re having when I’ve written and directed a feature film, then I feel like I can talk more about that. But for right now I feel very, very lucky to be a part of Destin’s journey and his film. This is his story and I’m happy to pick up in telling the more non-verbal and verbal parts that he doesn’t know how to express.
Was Grace a tough character to rub off?
This was actually not and this was actually the first time it wasn’t for me and it was a very conscious decision because I knew what this kind of work load, and with the amount of kind of struggle and conflict, internal struggle that Grace has to deal with, I was very afraid and my mother in particular was very afraid of me getting kind of swallowed up. We all thought it’d make a great performance, but if it costs $8,000 of therapy afterwards it’s just not worth it anymore. I can’t keep going.
You know at some point you have to be an adult. I didn’t know how to do that actually until I worked. I shadowed at this foster care facility before starting filming and you walk into this place and you see a completely other slice of life. You see how so many decisions that are not these childrens’ choice have led them to this, and you want to love them and fix them and hug them and give them everything that they want. And they resist you and push you and they slam doors in your face and they spit in your face. They have all these defense mechanisms and it hurts your feelings. I asked her, "How have you done this for 17 years, how can you put up with wanting to fix these children and them missing it?" She said, "Because they’ve never experienced it. You can’t explain a color to somebody if they’ve never seen it before." And she said, "If you aren’t able to separate yourself from this work, you do the best you can and then you go home and you have your things that are you and you have to go back to those every night. And if you can’t go back to that then you won’t last two weeks, then you’re not helping these kids at all, and then you’ve bailed on them just like everybody else has. So you have to understand the fine line between giving as much as you can and then also saying okay, and then there’s something left for me, there’s a place that I can go back to."
Cooking is very therapeutic for me. So I would take a lot of the craft services and stuff we had left over and take it home because I didn’t have time to grocery shop. I’d go home and my boyfriend and I would basically do like an Iron Chef with the stuff from lunch that day. You have a really nice meal, you watch “South Park,” you laugh, you watch the latest “SNL,” you talk about your day, I hear about what he’s doing. And I found that I was still able to get a very deep performance and it didn’t kill me, it didn’t sacrifice myself in the process. I hope that that’s something I can continue to do.
http://www.indiewire.com/article/brie-larson-discusses-the-daunting-challenge-of-leading-short-term-12-and-only-doing-projects-she-believes-in?page=2#articleHeaderPanel
How did you first get involved with Short Term 12?
It was a script that was sent to me while I was in Georgia filming The Spectacular Now. I was told beforehand ‘you’ll want to read this as soon as you receive it because you’re going to really relate to it and love it,’ and that’s absolutely true.
What jumped out at you when you read it?
The interesting thing about it, and it’s something that I think is transferred into being something really interesting about the film, is that there were specific spots in the script that had holes in them because [my character] Grace has a very internal life. For an actor that’s kind of the most beautiful gift to be given, a script that has the structure to support you but then also gives you this whole other side of creative freedom, to create something that is unique and mine.
Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2013/08/22/brie-larson-on-short-term-12-i-would-feel-dark-even-off-camera/#ixzz2hLdgVyKF
7. Acting is like racquetball.
“When you create the foundation of the character, you build these walls. And when the day comes to shoot, you get handed the racquet and the ball and you see where the ball bounces. But there’s no wrong way for the ball to bounce, because it’s just going off the angles of the room. You create the rules of the game, and then you get to play within it.”
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/brie-larsons-12-long-term-lessons-short-term-12-112311
DETAILS: You have another movie coming out this fall, Don Jon, with Tony Danza and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Your character Monica's primary form of communication is rolling her eyes and texting. Was it difficult being so terse when Danza and Gordon-Levitt would go off on each other?
BRIE LARSON: I loved it. One of the most interesting aspects of my job, and I got to experience this with Grace as well, are the times when you just get to listen to somebody and you don't have to say anything to them. It's a really exciting time because I enjoy the performances of others more than I enjoy performing myself. It was a strange experience playing a character that doesn't speak, though, because I'm such an over-preparer. Every day I'd have at least one panic attack on my drive over, thinking that I didn't learn my lines—and then I'd realize I didn't have any. It was fantastic.
DETAILS: You started acting at age six. Did you ever consider doing anything else?
BRIE LARSON: It's a very strange industry and it's impossible to quantify the progress you're making. I'm a very logical and mathematical kind of person and I like to understand the terms of things. There are times when you get told "no" so much that you don't have the strength or the ability to see beyond it. There have definitely been times when I've tried to understand why I wasn't something simpler, like an athlete where it's very easy to see your progress. But I'm not afraid to take time away when I need to because I see being an actor as an artistic expression—if you're not connected to it and inspired by it, you shouldn't do it. You should let someone else do it. For me this is not about anything besides wanting to do something because I love to do it. The hype stuff is make-believe.
Read More http://www.details.com/blogs/daily-details/2013/08/up-and-coming-actress-brie-larson-on-prepping-for-short-term-12-and-don-jon.html#ixzz2hLuSKy50
What surprised you the most?
The thing that I found so inspiring and has been something that has just transferred over into my own life was the main woman I had been shadowing had been in the field for over 20 years. She is strong and firm and also very loving of these kids. I asked her, how does she do this? How does she do this for over 20 years? She so seamlessly and beautifully made her way through these kids and keep their emotions at bay. She said, "You let go." Her philosophy was when you're there on the floor with the kids you're there for them and you put everything you can in, being as aware as you can and as perceptive as you can, and you give as much as you can.
But then when you're off the clock you go home and you do things for yourself. You figure out what your hobbies are, the things that recharge you, so you never forget who you are and you can go back the next day and give more without feeling like you've given away all of yourself. It was something I had never really thought about. I just thought being as much as a selfless person was the most important thing. But you realize that if you just give it all away then you don't have the fuel to do it the next day.
So that is how I approached the film as well. I would - those 12 hours on set – give it everything. But then when I went home, it was making myself a bowl of really cheesy pasta and watching SNL and laughing and reminding myself as to who I am, so I didn't stay stuck in Grace's head.
(LAUGHTER IS ABOUT IDENTITY!)
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/08/20/how-snl-and-norwegian-black-metal-helped-brie-larson-prepare-for-short-term-12
DT: What was the most challenging scene for you to film?
BL: There were moments where I personally left the character. There was one time where I wasn’t really Grace, I was myself, because I cried when Grace wouldn’t have cried. When Marcus shaves his head, I was so moved by Keith Stanfield’s performance that I had to excuse myself from the scene and cry.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2013/09/15/brie-larson-talks-about-filming-%E2%80%9Cshort-term-12%E2%80%9D
OK!: I saw it by myself and at the end I was looking around like who can I talk to about this immediately?
BL: I know! It’s funny. There are a couple people who came up to me afterwards and hugged me because they feel like they connected with Grace and cried and said “You were in a bounce house and I was crying and I don’t know why because you were smiling! I still couldn’t stop crying”. There’s something impactful about watching honest depictions about humans dealing with very relatable human struggles and learning to overcome it and talk about it and ask for help in honest ways.
...
OK!: Did you have to do any physical things to get ready as far as the sprinting goes?
BL: (laughs) No I didn’t! I mean I’m a pretty active person in general, so I enjoy that. The physical aspect of my job is something I enjoy because it’s not always something that gets to be explored but it’s necessary. When you’re playing someone who has the emotional turmoil for so long, what you want to do is run or do a hot yoga class. You want to overwhelm yourself by exhausting your heart.
http://okmagazine.com/meet-the-stars/exclusives-meet-the-stars/ok-exclusive-brie-larsons-new-movie-short-term-12-might-be-the-reason-she-wears-her-pajamas-to-the-oscars/
I don’t want to jinx anything, but people have already started talking and this will all get back to you anyway. Have you prepared yourself mentally at all for any award consideration for your performance in this film and the considerable bump in notoriety that comes along with that?
I’ve completely blocked it out. I haven’t read anything. I only read one review, which I’m very proud of. I hope to continue that philosophy. There are people who have said…very generous things. But…I don’t even know. I don’t know how to process that information, really. I’m just in my own little ignorant world right now. I’m enjoying the reaction people have to the film. But, I’m not very good at having the attention put on me. I’m not one that enjoys being observed. So, I’m trying to pretend that I’m not being observed right now.
In the middle of an interview where I’m observing you.
(Laughs)
But, after a highly-acclaimed performance, bigger offers tend to come in–
–Well, since I don’t have any of those, I don’t know! I couldn’t possibly say! What, are you offering me the lead in the next ‘X-Men’ movie? What are you telling me?
When you’re cast in the new ‘Star Wars’ movie, you have to call me back and admit I was right.
I would be so excited. But, I think that the fact my performance is being recognized as, “This is someone who put some thought and care in this and I’d like to give her the opportunity to do this again.” That feels great, because I want to continue to express myself in this medium. That seems promising. But, I don’t know if I’m the type of person that…will…feel like I’m not the underdog. I like this feeling. I don’t mind fighting for things. So, I truly have no idea what is going on right now or what is happening (laughs)! It feels surreal. I feel like someone woke me up in the middle of the night, handed me a plane ticket and said, “You’re going here.” And I don’t know where I’m going and everyone tells me it’s a really beautiful place. But, I could get there and maybe it’s not for me. I’m trying to focus on the small things and the day-to-day stuff.
Now you just got back from India where you were shooting a Bollywood musical. Already, that’s not the typical “next move” for a young actress.
Sometimes, after what ever it is I’ve done, I like to shake it up. I like to not get stuck in one mode. I had just done ‘Short Term’ and I was interested in exploring the idea of singing and dancing. And, in this film — I hate to quote other people but Alan Watts is a huge inspiration and he has this thing where he says, in life we’re always trying to get to this thing and we work really hard in school and then we go to college and we’re working really hard for this thing to get the thing and then we get an office and it’s on the bottom level and we work to get to the top thinking we’re gonna be so happy to get that thing and then you get there and it’s…fine. But, you realize you didn’t sing and dance along the way. The idea of singing and dancing throughout my life and finding that bliss is something I wanted to express and explore within myself and hopefully spread that idea to other people. The preparation for it was a lot of constant singing and dancing and getting in touch with myself and how my limbs worked in a way that I hadn’t explored before. Going to India was just the other screwball to it that made it really hard and impossible and adventurous and fun. I just wanted to try and I’m really glad that I tried. It was absolutely life-changing. I’m so much better for the experience.
http://screencrush.com/brie-larson-interview/
I was struck by how authentic the film was, you mentioned doing research, I was wonder how much research you did?
Brie Larson: I spent time, I don’t really feel comfortable saying how much time I spent, especially since I think I might get in trouble as I don’t think it was necessarily legal. It wasn’t just that I spent time on the floor, I also spent time waiting for this woman to have her very brief smoke breaks, things like that, I’m a sponge. And you realize the reason Mason smokes, it’s their only time they have, and you don’t really think about it otherwise. If they didn’t smoke, they wouldn’t think to take those moments for themselves. The addiction becomes an alarm to take a second to breathe, even though…
It’s the small things that informed me, and I was able to pick her brain. She was so incredibly inspiring to me, not just in informing Grace, but it helped me a lot. And I still live by the philosophies she gave me, and I feel like I got through the film because of the things I learned from her. She came to the set with her supervisor about halfway through shooting and she was so moved, and that gave me the clue I was on the right path. And that Destin had been in a similar facility for almost two years, I trusted that, and him, that I wouldn’t go too far in any one direction. It’s a very specific environment, and it didn’t take me too long to figure out how that works. That strength.
It’s interesting you mention your character doesn’t smoke, and I don’t she drinks in the film, and I get feeling that she can’t because she can’t have that release valve.
Brie Larson: She’s a control freak. Another aspect is she’s pregnant. There was a moment where she might have a wine glass on the table because maybe Mason has no idea, and maybe she does drink wine at the end of the week, and maybe they do have a date night, but for whatever reason this time the glass is still full. Those are things I thought about, but the thing I was so struck by in shadowing, the woman told me the way she got through it was by letting go.
She spends her workday focusing on these kids, but when she gets home she decompresses and doesn’t fight any more. And I thought that was a huge part of the film, that’s what Grace was doing before, but a lot of things were coming up and she couldn’t get away and didn’t know how to release or relax any more, and that’s just every day a little bit more and a little bit more, we all know what it’s like to not take a break.
Is that something you felt as actors working on a film like this, is it hard to cool down and detach?
Brie Larson: It wasn’t that it was hard to do, it was that it was important to do. It’s something I couldn’t skip on and it had to be a specific kind of relaxation that reminded me of myself. Not just mindless watching television, but reminding myself who I was so there was a distinction between grace and her world and me and my world.
http://screencrave.com/2013-08-21/interview-brie-larson-john-gallagher-jr-short-term-12/
Speaking of the multi-faceted nature, how can Grace be so warm towards other people and especially the kids, when she’s hurting so much inside?
There’s a few things that I feel about that. I think that every human, I’m sure you can relate as well to it being much easier to parent and mother and put love towards other people and see the good in other people. We don’t recognize or see it in ourselves. We might understand the concepts but it’s really hard for us to fully embrace it and say to ourselves, for whatever reason, “I’m worthy of being loved. I’m a good person.” How do you quantify that? How do you prove that to yourself? I think that’s a really hard thing to do and something that I started to learn through the process of the film, of just letting go and believing that I was even worthy of being the lead in a film was another form of learning that I can let good things in.
Then the other side of it is when you want to just not really be a human, you think that the pain is too painful and it’s easier to just try and work through it. She keeps thrusting herself back into the work, and in my own way I believe that she’s kind of passed herself off. She’s like oh, I’m broken, I’m screwed up but these kids won’t be and I’ll fix them. So every time something comes up for her that should be a call to action for herself, she just puts it back into the kids and that every time she puts it into the kids, it just becomes this glaring mirror that these kids are her and they are the same and there’s things to learn from them and that their pain is her pain and you as the audience are to realize that too, as in that her stories are the same as theirs and that they feel the same thing. That becomes an exterior way for her to be able to look at herself and take accountability for her pain.
Is that where her ferocity for the kids comes out, when she really fights for them?
Yeah, I always felt like as I was doing it, that she was really fighting for these kids but she’s also fighting for herself. It’s her way of trying to save the world, in a world that’s really impossible for one person to save. I don’t think that she realizes it at the time but it’s through time that that fight becomes for herself and I think she realizes that you have to help yourself in order to be a strong figure for the kids.
...
What’s next for you?
Oh, I don’t know. I have no idea. I’m traveling around with Short Term 12 for a couple more months and the only thing that I’ve decided at this point is that I am not making a decision until the movie has come out, until September or whenever I feel like I’m ready to make a decision. I don’t like being forced or asked to make decisions when I’m not ready to make them. There’s something that happened that’s really special about Short Term 12 and I care about it so much. I put a lot into it and that feels right to me and the reaction that people get feels right so I want to just keep going on that path, so waiting to do something until I know that it’s absolutely the best thing to put my creative forces towards.
That’s important to know about yourself to help make the right decisions.
Yeah, and it’s going to take some quiet. Right now I’m constantly around people and talking to people. It’s a lot of people telling me what’s going on and what’s happening and imposing upon me. Compliments are nice but they’re also confusing. It’s going to take me being at home and replanting my garden and taking at least a week to just drink coffee and go to the dog park before I think I really know when I’m in tune with myself. Right now I just feel like I’m returning the ball. I’m just playing a really interesting game of tennis. I don’t even understand how people know what they want for dinner and it’s the afternoon right now, so I can’t possibly understand what I want to do in the future career wise either.
I hope I wasn’t part of the problem with compliments, but I have compliments for you too.
[Laughs] It’s not a problem, it’s just hard for me to see that as reality. My brain doesn’t know how to file those things. I haven’t created a folder for those on my desktop of my brain.
http://www.craveonline.com/film/interviews/556621-exclusive-interview-brie-larson-on-short-term-12
Larsen: But it really shaped me, and shaped how I saw Grace and how I viewed how I was supposed to play it. I learned what kind of strength I needed and that was the main thing that I felt I needed to work on, because I wasn’t used to commanding people. I had to learn how to do that and not sound like a kid going “Don’t do that!”. I had to find a strength in myself that I didn’t… I hadn’t tapped into yet. So that was really exciting and a really good growing experience for me.
AD: Yeah, the character, Grace, is strong, but also has her vulnerabilities. Throughout the film I noticed that she kind of bounces between being very affectionate with the kids, and then very emotionally distant from people in her life. What do you guys think keeps her from sticking to either end of that polarity?
Larsen: For me… The way I related to it was the feeling like you’re already too far gone. Instead of looking at yourself, you put it towards everybody else, and think: “these are brand new lives, these can be saved, I cannot. Maybe through fixing these other people I will then feel the gratitude and love that I so deeply want,” but that takes [Grace] further and further away from herself, and also closer to herself…She throws herself towards these kids in order to separate herself from herself, and in the process she ends up seeing herself in everyone of them.
AD: I was reading some notes for this interview and you [Cretton] said that Brie always… That she never did the same thing twice when filming. That every take was different and everything was new and fresh, which was good for the character… Did you ever want it to be the same? Did you ever see her do something and say “Oh, do it like that again”.
Cretton: Well, I should probably put that statement into context. (laughing)
(Larsen laughs)
AD: If you want to clarify that statement that would be great.
Cretton: I’m not saying that Brie is incapable-
(Brie laughs more loudly)
of a consistent performance.
Larsen: I didn’t take it that way
Cretton: Brie is definitely not just some wild woman-
Larsen: I was trying different accents every take!
Cretton: What I mean by that is: it’s not the same take twice. It’s exciting for me because she is in the moment, you know, and if another actor does something differently in that take, she’ll do something differently in that take. I think for any director is what you want. Sure, there were times where we had to just replicate things. I feel like that’s somewhat easy to do. The difficult thing is the inexplicable way that she is able to convincingly say words on a page and make it feel like it’s happening right now, you know, spontaneously coming out of her. It was something that I think sometimes we were both surprised by. There were a couple of times at the beginning of scenes where she and I both didn’t know how we were going to get through it. Like, we looked at the words on the page and were like, “This could be really bad”, and then she would say let’s just try it. You know, there are so many scenes in the movie where it’s… something that could come across as very melodramatic and unrealistic. There’s one in particular.. We talked about it for a while and were just like, “Eh, whatever, let’s just try it”, and then she went and did it and I was like, “ Oh that’s how Grace would have done it, it’s just perfect,” we only had to do that take twice, I think.
http://smellslikescreenspirit.com/2013/08/short-term-12-interview/
I think what it comes down to is that this is a movie that really hits home for a lot of people. And it's not that people have necessarily experienced these things in their own lives, but it's a very human story. With that in mind, what part of this story particularly appealed to you? Or was it just the whole shebang?
I feel like the film means so many different things to me and the more I've watched it the more it opens up to me as to what it is. I think at first, when I'm first reading a script you can't help but focus and hone in on the character you're potentially going to play. Because it's all about, Do I know this person? Can I honestly play this person? How do I go about doing it? Do I feel comfortable in this situation with these people to play this role? You're analyzing the whole thing. So even while shooting it, I was seeing everything through Grace's perspective — because I had to. I was her. So I think for me at the time I was very interested in playing a woman who had a hard time communicating and being able to hone how much can be expressed through film without saying anything. And how hard it is. I think we do these reveals in movies all the time where someone opens up about something. But really? It's hard to talk. It's hard when things get emotional to tap into that and recognize what you're feeling and be able to correct it. So I thought that was an interesting aspect of filming, of myself to explore.
But then the more that I've been watching the film, and the longer it's gone on, I think the bigger thing for me and for Grace is accepting that you're of good things, that you're worthy of love and loving others through the process. And I think that's a really powerful human thing — and that's what you're saying. And I think that's exactly why the film hits people in this really really intense way because it's not like we're showing it to a bunch of people who've been abused or in foster care. We have had those people [see it], and they relate to it in one way. And then there are people who've just loved something and have had it taken away from them. That's the essence of the whole thing: the beauty and the flaw and the struggle of being a human being. The day-to-day stuff. The connections we make and the misconnections we make. The things we wish we would've said, and the things we wish we could take back from saying. And the power that we have as humans over each other to influence each other and to change the course of our life and our actual genetic structure.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/55027218/brie-larson-short-term-12-oscar-interview?page=all
This may sound strange, but I was surprised after I saw the movie how young you are in real life. Were you purposefully playing Grace to be older? Did you have an age for in your mind or in the script?
I think maybe Grace was supposed to be older on the page, but I'm 23 and I got cast. I don't know. I think it's something about — and I'm surprised because I don't have make-up on or my hair done — that there's something about her that seems ageless. I feel like there are some times when I watch it I look like a child and others I'm like, that's a woman.
She's lived a lot of life.
It's that and I also think it's the assuredness of her voice and the way she has to at times bark orders at people. And it sounds convincing, which is a really important thing for me, that it didn't sound like I was a child whining at people. I was really concerned with the tone of my voice when I was talking. I had to practice because I wasn't used to being forceful like that. I had never talked to anybody, let alone kids, in the way that I had to in this film.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/movies/55027218/brie-larson-short-term-12-oscar-interview?page=all
http://www.prx.org/pieces/102454-short-term-12-destin-cretton-and-brie-larson-in#.UiEM33mB678.wordpress
Did you feel that you could really relate to Grace? Her struggles are very specific and what she’s been through is not something we can all relate to but there’s something in her mix of vulnerability and strength and her passion that feels universal.
I really related to her and it’s still something that I’ve been piecing together after the fact because the script and who she was to me was so clear and so obvious. I knew that person but I didn’t understand why because she’s not like me. But the more that I think about it, and the couple of times I’ve watched the film, I’ve realized she is, for me, like the wounded, sad, childlike vulnerable parts of myself that need tending to. Then on top of that, she is a representation of the callous that you put over it and how dust ourselves off and say, in a way, “I’m not human, I’m fine, there’s nothing that can touch me.”
And especially as a woman, and a woman in the industry, I realized that I’d experienced a lot of pain and a lot of feelings of being abused in ways of being objectified. In time now I’ve been able to pinpoint a few experiences in my life that are nowhere near as painful as what Grace has gone through, but they are the same feelings I have felt, and that other women have felt, and other human beings have felt. We all know what it’s like to love something and have it be taken away from you, we all know what it’s like to feel like the rug had been pulled out from under us, and that what we believe to be life or reality is completely different.
Towards the end you kind of get a clue into her, but for the most part, I feel like she becomes this weird emotional crusader for a lot of people. And it’s interesting, after the film you have every age, shape, size, color, that have come up to be and said, “I’m Grace.” I’ve had men come up to me and say, “I’m Grace.” It’s a testament to Destin’s writing and a testament that the film is metaphorical in a lot of ways. It’s very easy to say, Grace is a social worker and she was abused and that’s really sad and there’s also hope involved. But it would be unfortunate if someone walked away and just saw it as that. People get really emotionally charged about this thing because they see it in themselves—they see the child in them, they see this kid that’s not tended to.
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But for whatever reason, we are here and so obsessed with keeping a strong front, and that everything is cool and everything is okay, and look at how nice my clothes are and these are the places that I go and these are my friends and this is how everything is supposed to look. But inside it much feel...
Terrible.
You must just feel worried all the time because you’re not in touch with who you actually are.
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It must be important to have a separation between your character and yourself, your home life and your work life, and not bringing Grace’s struggles with you at the end of the day. Was that ever a problem?
It has been in the past, but it wasn’t with this because I was ready to not do that anymore. I thought that to be a good actor you had to live it all the time, and it’s fine for comedies if you want to be funny all the time and you’re learning to improvise all the time and that’s great, but when you’re doing something and it’s a very sad person or a tortured character or someone whose not dealing with themselves well, it’s impossible. You have to be really aware of yourself because you’re playing into that, you’re changing your mindset for 12 hours a day for weeks, months, who knows how long. You can’t help that those things just start to stick, you can’t help it, it’s scientific, it’s the way that our brain feels.
When I shadowed at the foster care, you’re instantly shocked by how emotionally charged those places are and you have to cut through and navigate through all this emotion and pain and it’s just non-stop. So I said to the woman I was shadowing, how do you do this, how do you get through this day and go back and do it again and you’ve done this for seventeen years for 15 dollars an hour. How do you do it? And she just said, “You let go.” You are here, you do the best you can for these kids, you are as supportive as possible and then you go home and you don’t keep fighting for them when you’re at home, you use it as a time to fight for yourself, you use that as the time to decompress, to relax, and get yourself back to yourself. And I thought that was absolutely brilliant and the thing that was missing from my life. I would come home and I’d still be in the headspace of work or want to talk about what happened at work, and it was my world and my identity—I didn’t know anything else other than it.
I realized I felt so much happier, so much more comfortable, and had better relationships when I came home and the stuff I had done that day was irrelevant and it was about cooking me and my boyfriend a nice dinner, watching the latest episode of SNL, or talking about his day and getting into his world a little bit more and keeping things light—that saved me. And I didn’t have to like, go to therapy or anything afterwards—which has happened before. There’s been times where I’ve done a three week shoot and then it’s like, oh great, and now I’ve just spent thousands of dollars on therapy from that experience. We have a hard time differentiating between reality and fiction, the whole world seems fictitious to me, the whole thing seems like make-believe, so it’s really hard for the brain to go, no this is real and this is not real.
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You’ve also been working since you were very young, which is when you’re supposed to be developing your own identity and who you are at your core, but as an actor you’re thrown into so many different people’s skin and I imagine that’s very confusing.
It’s really confusing! That was a realization I had a couple years ago when I had some photo shoot where someone asked me: I want you to come in your own clothes, in what makes you feel like you, I want you to be you. And I remember going in my closet and going, holy shit, I have no idea. I have clothes from every period, I have clothes that are grungy to preppy to vintage to the latest in trend, and I just was confused. I realized it was because I was all of these pieces of things and they were pieces of people that I had lived in for a while, and none of it made any sense. It really inspired me to start focusing on my true essence. The complicated part is that my true self is changing, it’s growing, I’m becoming more of a woman everyday and that’s a whole new level of cleaning out the closet—which I just did. It was a weird experience to be like oh, about three fifths of my closet I can’t wear anymore because I’m not a child.
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I’ve seen Don Jon and The Spectacular Now and those were good roles, but not as meaty and unique as this one.
It’s really rare and I have no idea why. I think that if we were able to actually bring more complex roles to the surface, it would kick a lot of our butts in shape. A lot of actors I see just skate their way through things because they’re not challenged, like the kid in school who is really smart but they’re not challenged and so they fail. These are very talented people, we just have to really ask for it and not accept anything less than that. Movies are too influential of a medium and can be manipulative and if done the wrong way.
http://www.blackbookmag.com/movies/love-self-acceptance-letting-go-a-conversation-with-short-term-12-s-brie-larson-1.64145
I got in a very simple routine. My drive to work I would start to get into that world a little bit. I’d work my 12-hour day as Grace and by the time I got home, I wasn’t. I played my Nintendo and ate cheesy pasta and I laughed. It’s kind of like Inception really. I had my little totems and the things I symbolically chose to remind me of who I am and what I associated with myself. It’s just a scientific thing. The neurons that fire together are wired together. If you’re playing somebody for twelve hours a day that is doing this and going crazy, it’s hard to not do that. I had to be aware because I know how sticky that can be. I don’t think that I could and don’t think that this movie could afford to lose me to it. I had to play upper puppet master and not get lost in it.
http://sbiff.org/short-term-12-qa/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=short-term-12-qa
Short Term 12 is based on a short film, in which the lead character was male. The director Destin Cretton said that when he turned the character into a woman for the feature, it was “frightening” for him to write. Do you think that’s why a lot of writers and directors, particularly male writers and directors, stay away from these types of female characters?
Brie Larson: Yeah, I also wonder how often they see someone like a Grace in real life to be able to draw upon it. There aren’t a lot, I don’t think. Unless you’ve grown up having a really strong mother figure. We’re coming into a new generation of women where there’s the submissive woman, and then our reaction to it is ‘no, I’m a man too and I’m masculine’, and then we fight against it, which isn’t the answer either.
It’s not so much equality as that we’re trying to be top dog. I just don’t know if it is something that is a fully realized concept in the female, therefore it’s hard for a male to be able to write it. The key, and I’m sure Destin will realize this as well, is you just write for a woman as you’d write for a man, because they’re both human beings. It’s not really a hard thing, but in film, we think that a female character has to be for the woman, and what the woman wants is a movie that’s about how wonderful shoes are. And we really are across the board I think, craving something more. And it’s important for women, if they don’t understand that, to realize there’s more than that.
Do you think that it’s going to take writing characters as men and then just switching the name to a woman’s to get better female roles?
Brie Larson: I don’t know what it will take for anybody’s personal creative process but I think that it’s a chicken or egg situation, with females, where we don’t know anything and we can’t get upset about it if we don’t have enough women infiltrating this media and saying ‘hey, you know what? There’s no such thing as trendy nail-polish, that’s made up.’ It’s not real, none of that stuff is real. Trends are not real, they are for the consumer and once we can get enough of us to free ourselves from it and realize that it’s not about strong-arming our way through, it’s about understanding that we are so needed for the balance of this planet, then I think we can start having changes.
Women perpetuate those stereotypes from time to time because we feel comfortable using our sexuality as a form of power because that’s what we have been trained to do, that’s where our worth is and that’s how we get things done. And by using our assets as a distraction, or a diversion to get through, we’re paving a really bad road for women. We’re also talking about an industry that’s about money, and boobs and butts really sell.
You and Destin had talked about casting John Gallagher, before he had gotten the script. I’m curious what was it about him as an actor that you thought ‘ok, he is perfect for the role’?
Brie Larson: I’m pretty tough and picky when it comes to actors that I admire. I’m really not interested in acting as a facade, I’m interested in it as an emotional expression and as a transcendent experience for an individual. I find that a lot of people, a lot of young actors, haven’t gotten to the point where they’re comfortable being stripped down. They’re still interested in ornate jackets.
With John, I had seen Spring Awakening and always admired his work, and he’s always taken on very complex roles. And also having a lot of theater experience is really awesome because you know how to explore something and you’re very willing to expose yourself and give out to a lot of people. And he’s just like, a real person. So I think that’s why the relationship works, and that’s why the movie works, because it’s a real person. And he’s like a strong man but not in the typical football player strong man term, but he’s a real complex, feeling, individual.
You’re talking about not wanting to make it about your vanity and I think it’s very rare to find actresses who don’t mind being stripped down emotionally, and not playing the glamorous roles. Are there some out there that you admire especially for that reason?
Brie Larson: We’ve got a lot of greats. Michelle Williams, Toni Colette, Diane Keaton, Julie Christie, and these are all beautiful women, these are women who are comfortable with the beauty that they have when they wake up in the morning, not the beauty that happens after two hours having your hair tugged and your eyelashes curled. Gena Rowlands. Even I think Goldie Hawn is in her own way, she’s great at making fun of herself and making fun of her vanity. There’s power in that too. There’s power in recognizing that you enjoy getting your hair done.
http://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/interview-brie-larson-short-term-12/
http://blog.dinoray.com/2013/08/30/the-finer-podcast-chatting-with-brie-larson-and-destin-cretton-about-short-term-12/
This is very much a passion project for Destin. How does that effect the way he works with the two of you as you are in the midst of it?
JG- For Someone who has such a specific hand, and is in control, he’s not a control freak. There was never this vibe of “this is my vision! everyone has to get it right!” he never claimed to be the one who knew it all. I remember times where he’d say, “Well that’s the way I wrote the line, so if that doesn’t feel good coming out of your mouth and you have something you’d like to try, go ahead.” He’s very collaborative.
BL- I never felt like I was told not to do anything. I mean, there were times where he would ask me a question and I would think about it and come to a conclusion and then think I had gotten the result all by myself when in reality Destin had been the spark for it. He cast us because he believed we were the experts on these characters, and so we were allowed to be the experts.
http://filmpulse.net/interview-brie-larson-and-john-gallagher-talk-short-term-12/
“That community is so tough, but Reddit is the only [place] where I enjoy the comments people leave. I have my reservations, but I’ve been thinking more and more about the whole Reddit thing and I do think that I want to start contributing more, I want to start a weird Subreddit or something like that,” Larson continues, citing the site’s minor forums like Toaster Rights as potential inspirations for her own little community. “I would like to get over my fear. I think it’s because I was homeschooled, too, so I’m not so gifted at the whole connecting and making friends and being funny.”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jordanzakarin/brie-larson-the-geekiest-it-girl-ever
http://geektyrant.com/news/2013/5/13/wonderfully-charming-short-film-weighting.html
It's safe to say that you've "broken out," as the saying goes -- you were a regular on a hit Showtime series and made a big splash in "21 Jump Street" -- yet you insist on working mostly on these small indies. Why do you hate Hollywood, Brie?
(Laughs) I don't hate Hollywood, I just don't like manipulation in any form. There's manipulation, I'm sure, in Utah. I don't hate Utah. I just think movies are incredibly influential to society. I think art is – because it's this abstract form – it has this incredible ability to express things that aren't preachy, and that hits you in many different sensory ways… Film can be a synesthetic experience, and I am very interested in that, in the ability that we can kind of create this bottled up energy that can hit you from every angle. And because of that, I'm just very aware of what kind of messages I'm releasing out into the world, because I sit there on a set and I make this little thing, or I make a big thing, depending on what it is, and then it's taken away from me in the end, you know? And then it goes out, and people watch it, even if it's just one person. I just believe in the collective consciousness.
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What is your spirit animal?
I think it's a fox. I think that's actually what it is. I think it is a fox, but it's tough to say. I really personally, beyond any sort of Joseph Campbell mythology, I have a really very deep connection with the fish, especially the fish that are in the very deep sea. The ones that look like they're having a Daft Punk concert at the bottom of the ocean. I love those little guys. I think that they're really up to something. If I was given millions of dollars, I would put it towards trying to understand the conscious mind of the fish. I think that they are doing something… I don't know. I know it sounds crazy. My boyfriend's like, "They're just doing their thing. There's nothing big happening in there." But I think they are organizing something.
http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/brie-larson-short-term-12-interview/
