NEED TO KNOW
Before Brie Larson became an Oscar-winning actress, she was an aspiring pop star.
The 36-year-old recently joined Kylie Kelce on her Not Gonna Lie podcast to talk about her impressive career, including when she joined Jesse McCartney on The Beautiful Soul Tour in the early 2000s.
In 2003, Larson signed on to do a Disney Channel original movie, Right on Track, and soon after, she signed a record deal. In 2005, Larson released a studio album, Finally Out of P.E., which included her single “She Said.”
Later that same year, she was asked to open for McCartney while he was touring for his Beautiful Soul album. When Kelce, 33, asked what her reaction was to hearing she was going to tour with the “Leavin” singer, Larson said, “I was out of my mind. Are you kidding? I was so excited. I was going on tour. I had a tour bus.”
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“That’s like stuff of dreams. Like that part of my life, this like brief part of my life where I was a pop star, is such a fever dream and so bizarre and such a weird detour that’s so funny and weird,” she continued. “It’s just bizarre. The whole thing is just bizarre, but the music industry… it wasn’t for me.”
As a singer and performer, Larson was signed to Casablanca Records after posting clips of her songs online. Though she wanted to write her own songs and perform on her own terms, Larson wrote about her frustration with her label on her MySpace page in 2010, noting that she “wanted to wear sneakers and play my guitar – they wanted heels and wind blown hair.”
While Larson shifted gears to focus on acting, she told Kelce that she still “loves” music — specifically pop music.
“Still to this day, I think it’s one of the highest art forms,” she said. “Like, that’s part of what I seek in my own work, I just do it through character work. But to have universal messages that are told in a way that’s accessible to people in a way that’s like clear, but abstract enough for people to make it their own, that’s such a gorgeous art form that’s similar and also completely different from mine.”
She added that pop stars are her “heroes.”
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When speaking to PEOPLE in 2024, McCartney reflected on the success of “Beautiful Soul,” 20 years after the song’s debut.
“It was such a whirlwind. I was literally in math class and then suddenly I’m in Japan and singing for an audience of people that don’t speak English, but they can sing the song,” he remembered.
“It was pretty amazing and also strange… We never really knew what kind of impact that song would have then, let alone now, that it stood the test of time and became multi-generational,” he added. “Moms that were fans then are bringing their kids and they’re singing the song. That song took on a life of its own, and I’m very grateful for it.”
