We have to choose every day to be active participants. To wake up in the morning and choose this life and make something of it is an incredible thing. Not many living creatures have that option. We have so many opportunities and options - it's a huge burden, but it's also the most freeing part of our lives.

Brie Larson

Maybe you're not perfect, but you're willing to actually look at yourself and take some kind of accountability. That's a change. It might not mean that you can turn everything around, but I think there's something incredibly hopeful about that.

Brie Larson

perfect mean thinking

For me, I believe that just seeing women be strong and tough is not answering the question of what a female hero looks like. Women have their own set of skills that are worth exploring and seeing on screen.

Brie Larson

strong hero believe

I'm learning with the older that I get that some feelings are just universal and that I'm not the only one who hates their hair or their life at times.

Brie Larson

hate hair feelings

I want more awareness of humanity in this world.

Brie Larson

humanity want world

I had started acting when I was 7, and I was always wrong. I would always get to the very end [of the audition], but I wasn't a perfect package of one thing. I wasn't a cliche, and it always worked against me. I wasn't pretty enough to play the popular girl, I wasn't mousy enough to be the mousy girl. Then there was a TV show that Toni Collette was starring in. And when a role to play a girl who was struggling with identity came, I thought: "Oh, this is what I was supposed to do. Everything's leading up to this moment." I was 18. I was like, "This is it." I didn't get it. And I was devastated.

Brie Larson

tv-shows girl struggle

Sometimes I laugh with my parents, and sometimes I yell at them, and both are therapeutic.

Brie Larson

parent sometimes laughing

I know that I'm an actor and I guess I could kind of put on an act, but it takes so much more time to be someone you are not. I feel so much better just being comfortable with myself and hopefully girls will accept that.

Brie Larson

just-being actors girl

It's really hard to see yourself and to recognize that you are a human being like everybody else. You just think everybody's judging you.

Brie Larson

humans judging thinking

One of the reasons I love making movies is because it's an opportunity to share with the world a different way of being or a different way of living or seeing the world. If it's something you've already seen before, if I have too many reference points for it, then it's not exciting for me to make.

Brie Larson

different opportunity world

I feel like it's too easy to just say, "We'll just change the name of this male character to a female, but have her do all the same things that a male does." I don't believe in that. I think there's something else. I think there's more to women than that.

Brie Larson

character believe thinking

Part of accepting a role is being interested in the character and part of it is being interested in the movie or what it means and the exploration of it. But it's more about not knowing the answers to certain questions but wanting to go on the journey of discovery to find the answers.

Brie Larson

journey character mean

I think the interesting aspect of life is that you're always sort of in the middle. You're never the youngest and you're never the oldest.

Brie Larson

life-is interesting thinking

It's very scary to allow the world to see you.

Brie Larson

scary world

I usually get my lyrics when I let my mind wander, when you're not really awake, but not yet fully asleep. I keep an open notebook by my bed and then just write whatever comes to me.

Brie Larson

notebook mind writing

I was listening to a lot of Norwegian black metal and death metal. There's a great history to Norwegian black metal. That music is very dark and violent, but it's also beautiful.

Brie Larson

black dark beautiful

Surrounding myself with women of different backgrounds and on different paths and in different stages of their lives has become so valuable to me.

Brie Larson

stage different path

When I take on a character, it's a sacrifice. There's something that you give up every time. I want to become these characters, and I want to be mysterious, but if you know too much about me, it's not going to be too much fun watching me play a character, because it's just going to be me with a mask on, instead of you believing what the mask is.

Brie Larson

giving-up fun believe

The experience of making a movie, you start to see it everywhere. It's just this amazing mechanism that your brain does because it just so badly wants to be helpful and keep all the information that you need as accessible as possible.

Brie Larson

doe brain needs

I'm so used to swimming with the piranhas. And they're really not that bad.

Brie Larson

swimming used

In the past I've been very into the falling part, very into the swimming in the dark, deep emotional water. 'Rampart' I really went into it and it took me three times as long to get out of that depression as it did to just do the scenes. I had to learn to give it my all and then go home and laugh.

Brie Larson

dark home fall