10 Things we learned during the Captain Marvel press day!

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It’s hard to believe that it has been just over ten years since we were first introduced to Robert Downey Jr. in IRON MAN. The 2008 superhero extravaganza set Hollywood on fire, and it helped launch the MCU into the massive juggernaut that it is today. And here we are, in 2019, with a brand new champion for movie fans. CAPTAIN MARVEL tells the story of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) and her transformation into one of the most powerful superheroes that Marvel has to offer. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck – who also worked on the screenplay with Geneva Robertson-Dworet – the film features an impressive cast that includes the talented Ms. Larson, Gemma Chan, Ben Mendelsohn, Annette Bening, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Lee Pace, Clark Gregg, Lashana Lynch and more.

Recently, we sat down for a press conference with all the main players – aside from Bening, Mendelsohn and Pace – as well as Kevin Feige and both Boden and Fleck. It was a spirited conversation that went everywhere from the de-aging effects for both Jackson and Gregg, as well as the film's return to the 90’s and the age of Blockbuster video stores. The cast opened up about bringing these characters to life, and considering Mr. Jackson isn’t much of a cat guy, he appeared to have a decent time working very closely with a feline scene-stealer. Considering Jude Law is new to the universe, he discussed his own reasons for joining the team – hint, he’s got kids. And of course, Feige and the film’s directors talked about the process of bringing CAPTAIN MARVEL to life and keeping this story character driven.

While the cast and crew kept quiet about any kind of spoiler or what the future holds for Carol Danvers, we present to you ten things we learned during our time with the filmmakers and cast behind CAPTAIN MARVEL – opening March 7th at a theatre near you!

1. When it came to bringing Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden on board, Kevin Feige discussed why he felt that they were right for the job – and the many meetings that lead to the decision.

KEVIN FEIGE:  Well, it was more than one meeting.  Right, guys?  There was a number of meetings.  It’s their body of work.  And it’s their focus on character.  And our belief that they wouldn’t have lost the character, amongst the spectacle and the fun and the effects.  And really, Anna spoke very eloquently about, ah… Carol Danvers and about that female hero, and over the course of developing the movie, and producing the movie, Anna went up in a jet, as did Brie, which was super impressive and I wouldn’t do for a million dollars… [LAUGHTER] So, yes, it was those early meetings and their amazing body of work that made us realize they could bring Carol to life.

2. For Brie, the Academy Award winning actress discussed her own connection to Carol Danvers:

BRIE LARSON:  There’s a lot to love about her, which is why I was really excited to do this; in particular, the idea of playing a superhero, or a female superhero in particular because my interest is in female complexity; I was a little worried about playing somebody, a superhero that would be perfect — because I don’t feel like that’s realistic, or something aspirational at all.  In particular, even with my job, like you could just see this beautiful finished product where I look great, maybe… in your opinion. [LAUGHTER]  Ah, but you don’t know all the other takes that are on the cutting room floor where sometimes I physically landed on my face doing stunts — and sometimes I just do a bad take.  It’s just how it goes.  So getting to play a character where the whole character arc and turn of this is watching her be this major risk taker, which means it’s not always going to work out the best.  And those are the moments, the defining moments of her character, where she doesn’t lay down, she gets back up.  I mean, that’s everything.  That’s for everybody.  There isn’t a person who can’t relate to that, I don’t think.

3. Jude Law – making his Marvel debut in CAPTAIN MARVEL – opened up about how his children reacted to his involvement in the film. When asked if they cared about him being part of the MCU he added:

JUDE LAW:  Oh no, they cared. [LAUGHTER] But they cared only in vernacular of those teenage kids, so it was like… you know, it’s cool. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, it’s really, really great.  It’s about all I got, but I knew that that was quite high on the.. Richter scale, you know… I was just saying to Kevin, they saw it this week, and then there’s a screening next week in London and the fact that they all want to come again is a very good sign. [LAUGHTER] With friends.

4. One of the best aspects of CAPTAIN MARVEL is the relationship between Brie Larson’s Carol and her best friend Maria Rambeau (played by Lashana Lynch). The actress discussed working with her co-star and the character that she took on:

LASHANA LYNCH: They come from — they’re both in the military, so they come from male-dominated environments where they were drawn towards the women anyway.  They would find power in whoever they, you know, find energetic connections to.  So I feel like they just had — I think they had a sarcasm together.  They did a nice thing about how Brie has represented Carol is that she’s just a normal person.  She’s able to be every facet of what a woman represents today — sarcastic, dry, funny — she can kick men down and throw them into different parts of the universe.  So I feel like Maria embodies that in a very human way.  She’s able to just be a kind, good person.  You know what I mean?

BRIE LARSON:  Yeah.  Well, I think you’re right.  I think what they’ve gone through together, going through military training together, being the only women and then using each other to lean on each other through that type of like support and a recognition of their experience is… is really special.  I mean, of course, I think they would have been friends outside of that experience, but I think that that’s a really tight-knit bond that they have and they’re family.  I mean, that’s kind of what we’re talking about in this film is — without being too showboating about it, this is the love of the movie; this is the great love.  This is the love lost.  This is the love found again.  This is the reason to continue fighting and to go to the ends of the earth for the person, the thing that you love.  And it’s her best friend and her… her best friend’s daughter.  Which to me is so natural.  I don’t think that there’s at any point — I even, you know, I went and saw the movie with some people and it was like an hour later, where they were like, oh — Maria’s the love.  Like, yeah!  So it’s not like… something that we made a big deal about, but it just feels so natural because that love is so strong and I’ll just like, I’m going to brag about Lashana for a second because I love it — it’s like the movie shifts when she’s onscreen.  Because there’s a level of power that she commands in that, that I was talking with people yesterday and a lot of people were tearing up talking about some of the speeches that you give because they’re like, I felt like she was talking to me.  She was reminding me of myself.

5. Another highlight is the return of a much younger – and perhaps less serious – Agent Coulson. Mr. Gregg opened up about his very easy decision to return: 

CLARK GREGG:  It wasn’t a long conversation. [LAUGHTER] You know, they said, hey, do you want to come back?  It’s the ’90s.  Cool soundtrack.  Ryan and Anna.  Little origin buddy stuff with Sam.  And they’re going to give you more hair and make you look younger.  Oh, and Brie Larson is going to be Captain Marvel and I was like, okay, where do I go? [LAUGHTER] And it superseded that in every way.  It was so incredibly fun to do.  And I’ve gotten the thrill of taking my young daughter to a bunch of Marvel movies, but I’m taking a 17-year-old young woman to see Captain Marvel next week and I’ve never been more excited to take her to anything ever.  

6. Another clever nod to the 90’s includes a sequence that takes place in a Blockbuster video story. At one point, we see a familiar standee for a little movie called TRUE LIES. However, that film wasn’t their first choice: 

RYAN FLECK:  Yeah.  I think we tried to use THE MASK with Jim Carrey, because of the squirrels, you know, and we thought that would be funny. [LAUGHTER] But the studio did not give us permission to use it, so, ah — bummer.

7. Considering the history behind the character, Ms. Larson was asked about how she researched Captain Marvel and whether or not there was a “moment” where she truly discovered the character of Carol:

BRIE LARSON:  … Usually I prep for a really long time to kind of put myself in the feeling or in the experiences of the character to try to like see how I react and try to become her, I guess in a way.  But usually it’s super delayed for me.  It’s usually my mom that points it out, where she’s like, well, I think you’re turning into somebody else.  I’m like, no I’m not, and then two weeks later I’m like, oh, shoot, I’m Carol now.  It’s always a little delayed for me and it’s not like I have this moment.  I know some actors who have this moment where they’re like, she’s arrived.  I don’t have that.  And I think part of it is because, ah, I never want to feel like I have it or that I know her.  It always feels a little elusive to me, which is how you can keep trying and keep searching every day for a year, you know.  If you feel like you’ve arrived then it’s kind of… game over.  I always like to feel like I’m losing it a little bit.

8. As for the physical aspect, Lashana opened up about her own training for the film and finding her strength: 

LASHANA LYNCH:  I was able to take some military training.  Flying an F-16… is like your eyeballs coming out of the sockets and landing in your back pocket kind of thing. [LAUGHTER] That was great.  I can’t liken it to anything else, but it’s wonderful to be able to be an actor and just add these different experiences and skills to your repertoire.  And it was nice to just have the military… welcome me into their environment. For the woman to be really uplifted through the MCU I think is such a special marrying of two types of worlds that really meshed well together.  So I feel like I’m not only representing women, I’m representing black women.  I’m representing single mothers and representing all women in the military, and that’s pretty damn special.

9. And of course you can’t talk about CAPTAIN MARVEL and not bring up Goose the Cat. Just how well did Jackson get along with his feline co-star?

SAMUEL L. JACKSON: I am not a cat person. [LAUGHTER] Um.  But I’m also not a dog, bird or a fish person, either. [LAUGHTER] So I don’t engage pets. [LAUGHTER] Most animals that, you know, people bring to set that have been trained to do this, that or the other — he’s snack-oriented.  You know. [LAUGHTER] You give him something to eat, he shows up.  You know, [LAUGHTER] you give him something to eat, you talk softly and nice to him, give him something to eat again. [LAUGHTER] They love you. You know, so, it works out.  And… there were actually four cats, but Reggie did the majority, he did the heavy lifting most of the time.  But it was great to be around.  I mean, [Brie] had more problems with him than I did, because she has cat allergies.

BRIE LARSON:  Personally.  I’m severely allergic [LAUGHTER] [OVERLAPPING] — to be clear.

SJ:  Yeah.  I mean, not problems.  I mean issues.

BL:  We weren’t like, it was not sort of like diva, like we couldn’t work together.  

10. For the filmmakers, it was very important to keep the film character driven. Ryan went on to talk about bringing that element into the final product:

RYAN FLECK:  … in the early conversations with Kevin and with Brie, that’s what we wanted to bring to this story is… is a continuation of the things we had done in our other movies, which is an intimacy and… and character-focused storytelling.  The visual effects were challenging at first for us, but… we were working with the best in the business here and they’ve done, you know, one or two of these movies before we got here. We were in good hands and we were able to lean on them and work very collaboratively with the effects team and learn how that works.  And they were patient with us and it was wonderful.  I can’t think of a better studio to take that leap with.  I mean, they are just the best collaborators at Marvel.  And really let us tell the story we wanted to tell.

KEVIN FEIGE:  Well, in terms of the visual effects, it was having [PH] Victoria Alonzo, who’s been with us since the beginning, who knows this stuff inside and out and is an amazing mentor to filmmakers.  Christopher Townsend was our Visual Effects Supervisor, who’s done many movies for us.  And… because it ultimately is always about the story, there’s nobody pushing… the process never… overwhelms story.  We’ll alter the process if it fits the story, if it fits their vision.  And that’s how you end up with a great movie like this.