There are few careers that allow workers to have unique day to day experiences quite like acting. Let’s take Captain Marvel star Brie Larson, for instance. Since starting her acting career as a child she’s nabbed roles in popular movies like 13 Going On 30, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Room, which won her the Best Actress Oscar, along with starring in numerous TV shows and now being confirmed as the voice for Rosalina in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Larson has gotten to do cool things that many people dream of for her work, but is now opening up about how being on set can mean having “no agency” and what she does to combat it.
How Does Brie Larson Deal With Having ‘No Agency’ On Movie Sets?
It seems pretty clear that Brie Larson (who’s starred in many of the Marvel movies in order and who some think might be in Avengers: Doomsday) really enjoys her gig as an actor. Not only has the Fast X talent been doing it for nearly 30 years, and even has a very sweet reason for wanting to join the MCU as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, but she seems to always be having the most fun.
However, while speaking with the Your Mama’s Kitchen podcast recently, the 2026 movies lead revealed that one of the downsides of spending so much time on movie and TV sets is having to be told what to do all the time, and more so than someone with a more typical job. As she said:
A couple of years ago, I had this crazy epiphany that so much of my day when I’m on set playing another character is as somebody else, and my day is completely dictated by that. So, I’m told when to wake up, because of when I’m coming to work, when I can take my lunch break, when it’s OK to go to the bathroom, when I’m drinking water, when I’m sitting down, when I’m standing, when I’m doing a certain scene. It can build you up in a way to get kind of agitated, because you realize that you don’t have any agency, none of the things that you normally have in a day. It’s all dictated, and it’s kind of silent; you don’t realize it’s happening.
Alright, so, many people have jobs that require them to take lunch and breaks at a certain time or at least for only specific amounts of time, but can you imagine literally being told when and where to stand and, of course, also having exactly what you say and pretty much all your physical movements “dictated” for your entire workday? It would suck!
This idea of not having “agency” when it comes to some pretty basic things about going about your daily life when being on set as an actor hadn’t even occurred to me. And, as the Close Personal Friends star (whose movie will feature Meghan Markle in a cameo role) noted, it’s such a major part of the job that the realization that you can’t really do anything when or how you want (including going to the bathroom) sort of sneaks up on you. Luckily, though, she’s found a pretty simple way to deal with the stress that comes from it. Larson said:
I’m very committed to making my own lunches when I’m working. It’s just a way of giving a gift to myself and it makes me happy; having a lunch that I’ve made, that’s my choice. Outside of that, it’s going to be a catered lunch.
See? So easy. She just loads up her bento boxes and lunch box with whatever she’s in the mood for on any given day. That way, they might control when she eats, but they can’t control what she eats.
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