The Big Picture

Brie Larson gives a brilliant performance in Lessons In Chemistry and had a fulfilling experience being involved as both an actor and producer on the project. By being involved in the production process from the beginning, Larson aimed to create a more unified and efficient work environment for the cast and crew. The final monologue scene was one of Larson’s favorites and despite being sick, she delivered a perfect performance that left her feeling empowered.

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for the finale of Lessons in Chemistry.]

The Apple TV+ original series Lessons in Chemistry tells the story of Elizabeth Zott (Brie Larson), a scientist forced to live within the patriarchal confines of the early 1950s that refuse to recognize her talent and wit. When Elizabeth finds her meticulously structured life unexpectedly chaotic, she takes a job as the host of a TV cooking show that allows her to use her skills as a chemist to speak to a nation.

As an executive producer on the project, Larson was able to spend two years preparing to play this character and learning every detail and nuance about her before ever stepping onto the set. That allowed her such a deep understanding of Elizabeth that she was able to just live in the moment throughout the shoot.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Larson talked about working with her super sweet canine co-star, why she felt it was necessary to also sign on as an executive producer, wanting the cast and crew to be viewed more as a single unit team instead of separate entities, what makes editing one of her favorite parts of the job, why Elizabeth Zott is so universally relatable, and what made pulling off her finale monologue such a challenging task.

Lessons In Chemistry In the 1950s, Elizabeth Zott’s dream of being a scientist is challenged by a society that says women belong in the domestic sphere; she accepts a job on a TV cooking show and sets out to teach a nation of housewives way more than recipes. Release Date 2023-00-00 Cast Brie Larson, Lewis Pullman, Aja Naomi King Main Genre Drama Seasons 1 Creator Lee Eisenberg
Collider: First, I have to say that you give such an absolutely brilliant performance in this series. I loved everything about this character and the way you brought her to life.

BRIE LARSON: Thank you.

Image via Apple TV+

To start with a silly, but I think very important question, who was your favorite co-star on set, and why was it the dog?

LARSON: Yeah, Gus is undeniably adorable, it’s very true. He is so cute. Yeah, what can I say? Gus forever, honestly.

Yeah, I was going to say, if the dog was a monster, just lie to me and don’t tell me that.

LARSON: No, no, no, no, the dog was not a monster. The dog was a puppy, so he had puppy brains, but he was super sweet. Super soft and super sweet.

Why She Felt It Was Important to Sign on As An Executive Producer
When this was brought to you, was it important for you to be more involved in this specific project and in playing a character like this? And what do you feel was the biggest advantage to also being a producer on this?

LARSON: Yeah, it felt really necessary to me. I’ve been doing my job for a long time and one thing that I’ve just continued to be baffled by is that actors are brought in very late into the process. The rest of the crew has months of production meetings and conversations, so they all have their concept of how things are going to run and work. And then, on the first day of filming, the actor shows up and introduces themselves to everybody, and it’s not efficient. It’s not kind to anybody, really, because now we’re trying to learn how each other work and do this dance while filming, at the same time. And so, I’ve just been questioning that and saying, “Can we not say it’s cast and crew, but say that we are one unit together? We are a team. I can’t do this without all of you. You can’t do all this without me. It’s all connected. How can I best support all the other crafts people on this job?” It takes a thousand people working on the same art project, that all do very different things. So, I got to try this out as this new experiment and I just was like, “Why hasn’t this been a thing that people have done before?” It seems so simple. It makes so much sense. And so, to try it out and to find that for myself, and I think for everybody else too, although I won’t speak on their behalf, it was a very fulfilling work environment and we were able to have a lot of fun and also be really productive. Everyone felt really respected. I think that people felt like we were seeing each other for what we were. That’s a long-winded way of saying, I think it was important.

Image via Apple TV+

Were there things about her that you feel like you wouldn’t have even been able to know or explore or dig into, if you hadn’t also been a producer on this?

LARSON: Gosh, it’s hard to say. But I think that being immersed in it the whole time meant that I basically just had prep for two years. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise. That would depend on when I would have come onto the project. So, it meant that I knew the world and all these things were informing my understanding of her and the context of her. By the time we started filming, I didn’t have to really go, “What does she talk like? What does she walk like?” I just knew because I’d been in it, and everything about the show had been talked about and discussed and dreamed about for so long that it was just time to meet the moment.

Why She Loves the Editing Process
In the two years that it took to actually bring her to the screen, did who and what we see in the series change in any major ways? Were there things that were done differently by the time you shot this that nobody had really even thought about in the beginning?

LARSON: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s anything major. We had to move very fast. TV moves very fast, and we were a small but mighty team that was getting this done. And I think we were all just amazed, as it went on, about how well it was working, considering a lot of us just had to go off instinct. But no, I don’t think we had to backtrack very much, at all. There’s some stuff towards the finale where we had to reorganize the order with which you learn certain things, just to make it clear for people to understand, but those are also some of my favorite parts of my job, being in the edit. When the puzzle pieces aren’t fitting and you have to come up with a new thing, and you’re just sitting there staring off and you’re like, “Oh, all you have to do is do this and this and this, and take this shot and put it here.” It’s so fun. That’s the stuff that I live for.

Image via Apple TV+

There continues to be unexpected choices throughout this series. It all starts off feeling like it’s going to be a familiar story of this time period and a woman like this, and some of those elements are there, but the choices made along the way are not at all familiar, which I really loved. What do you think makes Elizabeth Zott a woman that anyone can relate to, no matter the time period, and what do you feel really makes her special?

LARSON: I think that what she’s representing is many things, but part of what she represents is the capacity for the human spirit to love again, to find purpose, to find meaning, to believe in themselves, and to believe in something that’s bigger than them. I think those are just so universal. It doesn’t matter who you are, I think that stuff is just what lives in us. I think part of what makes her unique is her inability to be deterred. I don’t feel like she makes decisions based off of fear, which I think is very rare. She’s very clear with herself and clear with her words, and is herself and is willing to deal with the consequences of what it means to be herself. She does not change that, and I think those are very honorable characteristics.

What Made One of Her Favorite Scenes Also One of the Hardest?
What was it like to shoot that final monologue that she has on the show? Was it freeing to be able to discuss menstruation, which is something people experience, but we’re so conditioned not to talk about? What it freeing to just be in a room full of women who absolutely understand what she was saying and to be able to talk about thing like that without any stigma?

LARSON: That was one of my favorite days and favorite scenes that I’ve ever done. I think it’s maybe the most proud I’ve ever felt of myself, doing that scene. I had gotten really, really sick. I was really ill and we were a week away from finishing filming, and I couldn’t really see. I was so weak that I couldn’t really stand. And so, I was with all the producers and we were discussing, maybe we need to shut the show down and we just won’t finish the show, and the scene we had up next was that one. I just said, “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t even know what the dialogue is. I can’t see it, but I don’t wanna just get in my car and go home. We’ve all worked too hard. I just wanna fall on my sword in front of everybody. I’ve gotta try. I just need to try.” And so, I went out onto that set that you see with all of those people and I was like, “Oh, my gosh, what am I doing? This is gonna be so embarrassing.” And I don’t know what happened, but something else took over and I was able to do that scene and every line of dialogue was perfect. I don’t know where that came from because I literally looked at the lines five seconds before they started rolling camera. It was just so bizarre to be doing this speech about saying goodbye to the show while we were actually saying goodbye to our show, and not knowing if we were gonna finish filming. All of that, that’s when life and art imitate each other. I was just like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” So, to answer your question specifically, I don’t know how there I was, but it was a very meaningful scene for me.

Keeping It Simple Can Be Powerful
It’s such a remarkable moment. It just sent me through every emotion watching it, but I also wondered how many times you had to do it. It must feel like pacing yourself for a marathon on the best day, so I can’t imagine doing that while you were that sick.

LARSON: Yeah, it was a weird one. I didn’t think about the practicality of her having a live studio audience, so I did. I would have full days where it was like I had my own cooking show. There were no guests. It was just me talking for many, many pages, and that was a new thing for me. I was really not used to that, but it was super fun.

It’s such an empowering moment for her, for the audience, and for the viewer. It’s just talking about something so simple, and yet it’s somehow so empowering.

LARSON: I agree. That’s sometimes how it works. A simple way of putting it makes it work.

Lessons in Chemistry is available to stream at Apple TV+.

Watch at Apple TV+