Brie Larson Had to Shoot Her First MCU Scene Knowing Nothing But Her One Line

You can watch Larson’s “Tonight Show” appearance above.

Think the secretive nature of the Marvel Cinematic Universe doesn’t extend to its biggest stars? Let “Captain Marvel” and “Avengers: Endgame” star Brie Larson set you straight. During a Wednesday night appearance on “The Tonight Show,” the MCU actress told host Jimmy Fallon about some of her earliest memories joining the franchise fray, including a first scene that would have tested any actor. Larson notably had to film her “Endgame” scenes before “Captain Marvel” even shot, so her first experience in any MCU film involved so much secrecy that she only knew one thing: her own single line.

“I flew to Atlanta to start shooting [‘Endgame’], had no idea what I was doing,” Larson said. “And I arrived and they gave me a piece of paper that was a full page of dialogue and action but all of it was redacted except for my one line. I even went to hair and makeup and was like, ‘Who else is here?’ and they were like, ‘We don’t know, we don’t know.’ It wasn’t until I walked on set that I was like, ‘Oh, crap, I’m like in a Marvel movie right now.’ And then I couldn’t talk about it.”

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While Larson didn’t share any more specifics about that exact scene — as she sagely noted, she still can’t talk about “Endgame” specifics — she did point to a similar experience being trapped in the MCU lockbox. As has become tradition, Marvel’s “Captain Marvel” ended with a pair of post-credits scenes, including one in which Larson’s Carol Danvers returns to Earth after Thanos’ snap, heads to the Avengers headquarters to find Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and asks a freaked out assemblage of still-alive Avengers where the S.H.I.E.L.D. director is.

The answer is, of course, “snapped.” But Larson didn’t know that when she filmed the scene. She also didn’t even know it was going to be used as a post-credits tag for “Captain Marvel.” Secrecy!

“I didn’t know that was a tag for ‘Captain Marvel,’” she said. “I didn’t know what that was what we were shooting. There was also nobody else there. I was by myself on a green screen. … They whip-panned over to me, and I was like, ‘But where is he actually? Like is he in the room? What room am I in?’”

Larson was even kept in the dark regarding the meaning of the scene, and eventually had to piece together for herself that Fury wasn’t just in the next room or even some other universe, he was dead. Marvel brass wouldn’t even tell Larson which other MCU stars were going to be in the room with her when she asked about Fury’s location. “And then I had the pleasure, at the ‘Captain Marvel’ premiere, of seeing what that scene was and going, ‘Oh, that’s what that meant!,'” she added with a laugh.

“Avengers: Endgame” opens in theaters on Friday, April 26.

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