Don’t call Aubrey Plaza a “deadpan” comic actress. Sure, she’s traded in subtle snark on projects ranging from the long-running “Parks and Recreation” on NBC to last year’s humor flick “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates.” But “I don’t think it really paints the whole picture,” insists Plaza, 32, as she gets dolled up for our Alexa photo shoot. “I think it’s a very lazy term. It’s actually harder to be funny when you’re not doing that much, when you’re not trying to overdo it.”
Now she’s stretching her dramatic wings in Marvel Comics’ new FX series “Legion” — set in a psychiatric facility — where she plays Lenny, an “optimistic crazy friend” to lead character David (Dan Stevens of “Downton Abbey”). While Plaza won’t divulge the mental illness Lenny may — or may not! — battle in the series, which debuts tonight, she dangles a carrot of intrigue: “People are going to be very shocked at where she ends up at the end of the season,” she says. “Nothing is as it seems.”
It’s fitting, then, that the star’s look is also turned upside-down today — she’s hiding her red curls under faux pink locks. The whimsical wig was Plaza’s idea (and was custom-made by celebrity hairstylist Rod Ortega; they spent a weekend plotting it over text) of another way to defy expectations — something she’s been doing since she was a kid.
“I was a total tomboy,” Plaza says of her childhood in Delaware, where she attended an all-girls Catholic school and was raised, along with two younger sisters, by a lawyer mother and wealth-manager father. “I was really shy and really quiet until middle school, I guess.” That’s when she discovered community theater, which changed everything. She eventually moved to New York in 2002, attended NYU film school and performed improv comedy with the Upright Citizens Brigade. “I’m actually not that great at long-form improv,” the actress admits. “I like doing characters, but long-form improv is really hard. It requires a lot of mental acuity. I had some great moments, but I had really embarrassing awful fails.”
Her big break came as the hilariously apathetic intern April Ludgate on “Parks and Rec,” co-starring fellow UCB alum Amy Poehler. “I think it was the closest character to myself I’ve ever done,” says Plaza. “I mean, I am her. They based it on my actual personality.” After seven seasons, the tightknit cast still keeps in touch and shows up to support each other’s projects. “We actually have an ongoing mass text chain that someone will update every other day,” she explains.
People are going to be very shocked — nothing is as it seems.” — Plaza on her new tv series, “Legion”
People are going to be very shocked — nothing is as it seems.” — Plaza on her new tv series, “Legion”
Without all those texts, it might be hard to keep up with Plaza’s ever expanding career. She recently added producer-actor to her résumé, serving double duty on two films that debuted at Sundance in January. In “Ingrid Goes West” she plays the title character, a superfan stalker of an Instagram star played by Elizabeth Olsen.
“It’s more about attachment and obsession and less about someone who is mentally unstable,” she explains, before adding dryly, “but I guess I’m like the go-to crazy person or something.” In “The Little Hours,” meanwhile, she’s a 14th-century not-cut-out-for-the-cloth nun, alongside Alison Brie, Kate Micucci and Molly Shannon.
The film was written and directed by Jeff Baena, Plaza’s boyfriend since 2011. “We’re so obsessed with movies,” she says. “That’s why we’re making movies together.” The couple regularly watch DVDs pulled from Baena’s alphabetized library (’70s flicks and Robert Altman films are in high rotation) — and Baena’s writing a script they plan to film in Italy later this year.
When it comes to red-carpet occasions, Plaza works with stylist Jessica Paster, transforming from sleek (a black, long-sleeved, low-cut Alexandre Vauthier gown for the 2015 Emmys) to mod (a Prada minidress for the “Mike and Dave” premiere) to badass (a studded leather Miu Miu dress for an event last month).
Most days, though, Plaza throws on a black turtleneck, a pair of skinny Mother jeans and her Rag & Bone combat boots. “I grew up wearing a uniform for most of my life, so I think that’s probably why I don’t go too crazy with fashion,” she says. As proof, the actress estimates she owns 20 gray sweaters. “And I keep buying them, cause there’s something wrong with me,” she says. “Any kind of loose, baggy gray sweater? I want it. I just wanna wear a gray sweater all the time. Maybe that’s a leftover New York thing,” says Plaza, who still considers herself a downtown girl even though she moved to LA in 2008.
On a January trip to Manhattan, she wandered (“That’s what I miss about New York — walking everywhere and not having to plan anything out”), hit Russ & Daughters, caught some plays, and even dropped by UCB to perform in a show. She also worked as brand ambassador for the new skin-care line Peet Rivko, created by one of her best friends from childhood, Johanna Peet.
So how does Plaza keep busy when she’s not producing, filming or being a solid BFF? “Pretty much I will sleep for 12 hours straight, then I’ll probably sit somewhere and stare at the wall till it gets dark, then go back to sleep,” she says. Really? “Pretty much,” she replies. “I go into a dark hibernation cave.”
It sounds like a quote from her Twitter feed — often in all caps and always brimming with dry humor — but she shuttered that account earlier this year. “There was a time when it seemed really fun, but it seems to be a place that’s more toxic than fun for me, with the political stuff,” she says. “It started to feel unhealthy, and I didn’t need that in my life anymore.” She’s since switched to the glossier Instagram.
It’s a move that’s symbolic, perhaps, of the shifts in Plaza’s real life — from rough-and-tumble tomboy to glamorous Hollywood star. “Maybe it’ll just show everyone that if you didn’t grow up wearing pink,” she says — in what might be delicately called a deadpan voice — “it’s not too late.”
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