Brie Larson, Academy Award-winning actress known for her role as Captain Marvel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, said during an appearance today on Fandango’s Seen on the Screen podcast that Hollywood has much to learn from the video game industry. Larson, who voices Princess Rosalina in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, set to hit theaters on April 1, made the statements while speaking with host Jacqueline Coley, and they are already generating conversation across gaming and entertainment communities.
“There’s so much that video games are taking from cinema, and I think it’s really time for us in cinema to recognize what we can take from video games,” Larson told Coley. “The gaming community is much bigger than the film and television world, and it’s this bizarre thing where now that I’ve started talking about it more and reaching out and even talking with video game companies because I find it so inspiring and these are the creators that I love.” She also pointed to a cultural blind spot she believes exists around gaming. “People say, ‘What movies did you see? What book are you reading?’ But not so much do you think to ask, ‘What video game are you playing right now?’ I believe we’d be surprised to find that more people are actually playing games.”
The comments carry weight coming from someone with a long, documented history in gaming. Larson has been a Nintendo fan since childhood, starting with Super Mario Bros. on the original NES. In 2020, she launched her YouTube channel and shared that she once threw her first boyfriend out of the house while trying to beat the final level of Super Mario Galaxy, “He said that I was taking it too seriously, so I threw him out of my house,” she recalled.
That same year, Nintendo featured her in its My Way to Play campaign for the Nintendo Switch, where she appeared playing Fortnite, Ring Fit Adventure, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In 2019, she appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she played Beat Saber on Hard mode. In February 2024, Nintendo invited her to a hands-on press preview of Princess Peach: Showtime! ahead of its March 22 release, where she tried five of the game’s transformations. On the Hot Ones YouTube show, Larson named The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild as one of her all-time favorite Nintendo games.
Her casting in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is no coincidence
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is the highly anticipated sequel to The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was released in 2023 and grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide.
The new film, produced by Illumination and Nintendo and distributed by Universal Pictures, is directed by returning filmmakers Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, with a screenplay by Matthew Fogel and score by Brian Tyler. Larson joins a star-studded voice cast that includes Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Benny Safdie as Bowser Jr., Donald Glover as Yoshi, and Issa Rae as the Honey Queen. Larson voices Princess Rosalina, the guardian of the Lumas who was first introduced in the 2007 Nintendo Wii game Super Mario Galaxy.
Larson has made no secret of her connection to the role. At the Nintendo Direct presentation on March 9, 2026, where the film’s final trailer debuted, she said: “This is a huge moment for me. I watch these, I’ve played all of these games my entire life. I cannot wait for you to experience this film on the big screen.” On the Seen on the Screen podcast, she also described the film as carrying a profound emotional message. “There’s profound things in this movie. The person who’s going to see some indie arthouse film is not necessarily the same person that’s going to think to go see an animated movie. Sometimes there’s overlap. But it doesn’t mean that we don’t all need these same messages,” Larson said.
A community bigger than Hollywood that the industry still underestimates
The argument Larson is making goes beyond her own casting. During the podcast, she described actively reaching out to professionals within the video game industry and finding their creative process genuinely inspiring, reinforcing her belief that the exchange of ideas between the two mediums has been largely one-directional.
Video games have spent decades absorbing techniques from cinema, narrative structure, cinematography, character development, and musical scoring, and titles like The Last of Us, God of War, and Red Dead Redemption 2 have demonstrated that the medium can match film in emotional depth and storytelling complexity. Larson’s position is that it is time for cinema to return the favor and study what gaming does well: player agency, environmental storytelling, world-building, and the ability to keep audiences engaged for dozens of hours at a time.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie arrives in theaters on April 1, 2026. The first film in the franchise, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, remains one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time, with a worldwide box office total of over $1.3 billion.
Do you think Brie Larson is right, should Hollywood start taking more cues from the gaming world? Drop your thoughts in the comments, we want to hear what you think!