Aubrey Christina Plaza was born on June 26, 1984, in Wilmington, Delaware.[2] The eldest of three sisters,[3] she was born when her parents, Bernadette M. and David Plaza, were 19 and 20. They worked various jobs to make ends meet and attended night school in pursuit of their respective professional qualifications to become an attorney and financial advisor.[4][5][6] Plaza was inspired by their work ethic: "My parents are very ambitious and they came from nothing ... They were hustlers, so I think I have that in my blood".[5][7] Her paternal grandfather was born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, and moved to the mainland US when he was 17 years old.[8] Raised "Catholic in a very Catholic household",[9][10] Plaza is Puerto Rican on her father's side and has Taíno, Black and Spanish ancestry.[11][12][13] Her mother, who was adopted, is of Irish descent.[14][15][5] In 2023, Plaza told Wired that her 23andMe test showed that she is 34% Iberian (Spanish), 31% Irish, 10% West African, 7% Native American, and 0.6% Ashkenazi Jewish.[16] While her parents worked, Plaza was raised by her Irish foster grandparents and her Puerto Rican family.[14][17]
As a child, Plaza loved films and actively engaged in imaginative play.[14] She described herself as shy and quiet until middle school, when she discovered and acted in community theater.[18][5][19] She attended Ursuline Academy, an all-girls Catholic school. While in high school, she was student-council president of her school, performed in theatrical productions with the Wilmington Drama League and the Delaware Theatre Company,[3][20] and made short films as a hobby.[21][22] She also enrolled at an improv school in Philadelphia.[15] As a teen, Plaza worked at a video store, during which she discovered her love of independent films and filmmakers that inspired her, such as John Waters and Christopher Guest. Waters' satirical film Serial Mom (1994) made a significant impact on her, and she connected with his comedic sensibility.[27] In 2001, she attended New York Film Academy's summer camp for filmmaking.[28] She graduated the following year from Ursuline Academy and moved to New York.[18] Plaza studied film and television production at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 2006.[3][29]
Plaza trained and performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre since 2004.[3][30][19] She also performed at the Laugh Factory and The Improv.[28] Plaza named Amy Poehler as an inspiration for her decision to perform improv.[26][31] She described her experience at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre as "intoxicating", explaining: "It just truly felt like we are in an underground – literally, underground – theatre doing an art form that is so fucking hard, and just so fun when you get it right."[31] While she was in film school, she had an internship at Saturday Night Live for the 2004–2005 season, and another as an NBC page, during which she appeared in an episode of 30 Rock in 2006.[4][32] She was also in two short films in 2006, Killswitch and In Love.[33] In 2008, she was part of an Improv Everywhere sketch where she and others took an entire desktop computer and monitor to a Starbucks in New York City.[34][29] Plaza had a recurring role in Maggie Carey's web series The Jeannie Tate Show, played the role of Robin Gibney in ESPN's Mayne Street (2008),[29][17] and appeared in the first episode of "Terrible Decisions with Ben Schwartz" on Funny or Die.[35]
In 2009, she made her feature film debut in Derrick Comedy's Mystery Team. She then played a standup comic and Seth Rogen's love interest in the black comedy-drama film Funny People, directed by Judd Apatow.[29] As she did not have experience performing standup, she signed up for open mic nights at comedy clubs and bars in New York City to prepare for the role.[28][21] For her audition tape, she performed and recorded five minutes of standup comedy at her friend Donald Glover's standup show.[36][17] When Plaza flew to Los Angeles for Funny People, the film's casting director Allison Jones asked her if she wanted to attend other meetings while she was in the city. Jones set up a meeting with Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, who were developing Parks and Recreation. At the meeting, they told her the idea for the show's pilot and that they were considering giving Amy Poehler's character an assistant who was a doltish blonde. Plaza pitched them instead the character of a smart intern who is at the department only for college credit and does not care about the job, which Plaza thought would be an interesting, comedic contrast with Poehler's character. They liked the concept for the character and created April Ludgate.[37][14][6][36] Plaza, who said that in real life she was like Poehler's earnestly hard-working character, took inspiration from her younger sister for April's apathetic disposition.[38][39][5] Plaza played the role from 2009 to 2015. She received praise for her performance, and April was considered one of the show's breakout characters.[2][40]
2010–2016: Rise in film and television
Plaza in 2012
While Plaza was in Los Angeles for Funny People and Parks and Recreation, Allison Jones also recommended that she audition for Edgar Wright's romantic action comedy film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010). Plaza was cast in the film, playing the supporting character Julie Powers.[29][17] On March 12, 2010, Plaza performed at A Night of 140 Tweets: A Celebrity Tweetathon for Haiti, produced by Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Ben Stiller, and Mike Rosenstein, at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles.[41] In the breaks between filming Parks and Recreation seasons, Plaza appeared in other projects, films and television series. She appeared in a CollegeHumor short alongside Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. In 2011, she had a recurring role in the sketch comedy series Portlandia,[29] and guest starred as "The Princess" in the comedic sci-fi web series Troopers on CollegeHumor.[42][43] She also appeared in the comedy-drama film Damsels in Distress (2011) and the romantic comedy 10 Years (2011).[44][45]
In 2012, Plaza had her first starring role in a major film in the comedy Safety Not Guaranteed, playing a magazine intern who answers a curious want ad.[29] Her performance received positive reviews, and she won the award for Breakthrough Performance (Female) at the 2012 Young Hollywood Awards.[46][36] In 2013, she portrayed the character Sacagawea in the Drunk History episode "Nashville" during a segment on Lewis and Clark's expedition.[47] In 2013, she also had the starring role in the CBS FilmThe To Do List. In an impromptu attempt to promote the film, Plaza ran onto the stage at the 2013 MTV Movie Awards and grabbed Will Ferrell's award for Comedic Genius, inspired by Kanye West's interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, with a drink in hand while the film's name was written across her chest. She was ejected from the studio lot where the ceremony was held.[48]
In 2017, Plaza starred in and produced the films The Little Hours and Ingrid Goes West. The former is a black comedy about medieval nuns loosely based on stories from The Decameron.[29] Both films premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In Ingrid Goes West, Plaza portrayed the social media obsessed fan of a celebrity played by Elizabeth Olsen. Variety film critic Peter Debruge praised Plaza's performance writing: "Plaza's tortured performance captures all of this, which is saying something for an actress whose blasé persona hinges on the fact that she can't be bothered: Nobody plays ambivalence better, and yet, Plaza allows herself to seem vulnerable here."[53] The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature. The following year, she starred in the indie comedy An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn.[54]
From 2017 to 2019, Plaza portrayed both Amahl Farouk / Shadow King and Lenny Busker in the FX series Legion,[55] which was critically praised along with Plaza's performance.[56][57][40] The role of Lenny was originally written for a middle aged man. When Plaza was offered it, she requested that the character's dialogue and actions remain, as she did not want it "being tied down to anything gender-wise".[58][59]David Bowie was an inspiration for her approach to the role.[58] She was given creative freedom with the character and collaborated with directors and choreographers on sequences that were ambiguously described on the page.[60] In 2019 and 2020, Plaza hosted the Independent Spirit Awards.[61] In 2019, she starred in Child's Play, a reboot of the 1988 film, as Andy's mother who brings home a killer doll, Chucky.[62]
In 2020, Plaza played Riley Johnson in the romantic comedy Happiest Season,[63] and produced and starred in the independent experimental thriller Black Bear, garnering critical acclaim for her performance.[64][65][66]Black Bear follows a filmmaker who retreats to a cabin in the mountains to find inspiration for her next film.[67]NME wrote that the film "examin[es] the power dynamics in filmmaking",[31] and Collider considered it an exploration of "human relationships, gender dynamics, and celebrity".[68]
In 2021, Plaza wrote and made her directorial debut with the episode "Quiet Illness" of the Showtime anthology series Cinema Toast.[69] Created by her partner Jeff Baena, the series reinvents imagery from public domain films to tell different stories. In crafting "Quiet Illness", Plaza was inspired by actress Loretta Young's experiences and footage of her appearances. She edited various film and television clips starring Young into a psychological thriller about a woman's self-esteem, and cast Christina Ricci as a voice narrator.[70][71] She described the project as "trippy" with a "pandemic-filming style".[31] Plaza said that she has always had an interest in directing, and she had been writing a project during the COVID-19 pandemic.[71] She also wrote a children's book with Dan Murphy, The Legend of the Christmas Witch (2021), illustrated by Julia Iredale.[72]
According to the review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, Plaza's most critically acclaimed films include Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Ned Rifle (2014), Ingrid Goes West (2017), The Little Hours (2017), Black Bear (2020), Happiest Season (2020), Emily the Criminal (2022), and My Old Ass (2024). Her most critically acclaimed television projects include Parks and Recreation (2009–2015), Legion (2017–2019), Calls (2021), Little Demon (2022), The White Lotus (2022), Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (2023) and Agatha All Along (2024).[105]
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
