Brie Larson makes superhero debut in female-led 'Captain Marvel'

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oscar winner Brie Larson gets embroiled in galactic conflict in Marvel Studios’ first female-led superhero movie “Captain Marvel”, a role she said pushed her beyond her comfort zone during training.

The actress, who won the best actress Academy Award for “Room”, plays former U.S. fighter pilot Carol Danvers in the highly anticipated film, set in the 1990s and which follows her path to becoming a superhero.

With the movie featuring plenty of fights, Larson’s training included doing judo and pushing a Jeep, a video of which she shared on Instagram.

“There’s something about pushing yourself beyond a threshold that’s comfortable, and then going even further than that,” Larson told reporters in Singapore on Thursday.

“It was these moments ... of going beyond what you thought was possible... and it means sometimes that you end up on the floor crying, like begging for it to stop but all of that is who Carol is.”

Larson was joined by co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and Gemma Chan in Singapore to promote the film, which begins its worldwide cinema rollout in March.

In “Captain Marvel”, Jackson, 70, plays a younger version of super-spy Nick Fury, who wears an eyepatch and has a scar in the “Avengers” films.

“I have a lot less instinct than older Nick Fury has so I learned a lot from (Larson) during the course of the film,” he said.