‘I couldn’t be more excited’: Brie Larson follows Tom Holland in ditching the MCU to achieve a whole other acting dream

Just as the Avengers have disbanded on screen since Endgame, the many leading stars of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have put aside their spandex outfits to embrace other acting challenges over the past few years. From Chris Hemsworth donning an artificial schnoz in Furiosa to Robert Downey Jr.’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer performance (yes, now he’s back at Marvel as Doctor Doom, but still…).

Another Oscar-winner, Brie Larson, isn’t one to sit around and wait for Kevin Feige to call her either, as the Captain Marvel actress has been confirmed to be embarking on a bold new project that should excite Larson’s most loyal fans. Interestingly, she’s following in the footsteps of her fellow Marvel star Tom Holland who did the same thing earlier this year.

Brie Larson is playing Elektra… No, not that one

Brie Larson has been announced to be making her West End stage debut in 2025. This makes her the second major MCU star to tread the boards in recent times, after Holland’s recent run in Romeo & Juliet. Larson is set to play the lead in Elektra — no, not a stage adaptation of the Jennifer Garner movie, but the classical Greek tragedy from Sophocles.

In Elektra, Larson will portray the eponymous protagonist who is consumed by grief after the assassination of her father, leading her to team up with her long-lost brother Orestes in order to seek justice and vengeance. No other casting details have been confirmed at this time. The play comes from Empire Street Productions, the team behind Jodie Comer’s award-winning Prima Facie.

“I couldn’t be more excited to perform in this Greek drama, or in better company collaborating with Daniel Fish and Anne Carson,” Larson told BBC News, “Storytelling has always been the way I organize life, feelings and experiences. I look forward to sharing space with the wonderful West End audience while we explore this timeless story.”

Elektra marks Larson’s first time treading the boards since performing in a production of Our Town in 2010, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts, USA. Elektra will kick off its run at the Theatre Royal Brighton for a single week (Jan. 13-18, 2025) before switching to the Duke of York’s Theatre in London for the remainder of its three-month run, kicking off Jan. 24.

Will Brie Larson return to the MCU after The Marvels?

With Larson making her return to the stage after 14 years, clearly the Room actress is looking to challenge herself as a performer at this point in her career, which may lead some to wonder if we’ve seen the last of her as Carol Danvers.

It is a fact at this point that there are no confirmed appearances for Captain Marvel on the docket, something that may or may not be linked to the embarrassing box office failure of The Marvels last November. Seeing as the sequel stands as the MCU’s lowest-grossing movie of all time, the studio is unlikely to fast-track Captain Marvel 3 anytime soon, so it does add up that Larson has enough free time to commit to a 12-week stage production.

At the same time, it would be surprising if Carol simply vanishes from the franchise as some kind of role in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars is surely to come. It’s also worth noting that Larson has, to date, appeared in all of director Destin Daniel Cretton’s movies, so at least a cameo appearance in his Spider-Man 4 seems highly plausible. Ironically, that would bring both Larson and Holland together again — maybe they could swap West End stories.