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Few actors can brag that they had a role specifically written with them in mind. Aubrey Plaza can say this about herself at least a couple of times. Who could blame Hollywood for wanting to cast such an enigmatic, unique, and seriously talented actress? As a long-term Aubrey Plaza fan, I’m not one to complain about her slow and steady ascent to stardom.
The 38-year-old actress has been killing it lately with her latest television and film performances. Her professional acting career launched in 2009 with a minor role in Judd Apatow’s Funny People. Donald Glover convinced her to send an audition tape, which the casting director loved. However, they wanted to cast a stand-up comedian and by that point, her only experience with live performances was doing improv. “I was not a standup comedian at the time, but I just decided, ‘Okay, I’m just going to pretend to be a standup comedian,’” Aubrey Plaza recalled. And the rest, as they say, is Hollywood history.
Since 2009, she has built a formidable resume in the comedy genre. She starred in films like Safety Not Guaranteed, The To-Do List, and Life After Beth. But it’s not just deadpan comedy that the Parks and Recreation alum knows how to do. In recent years, Aubrey Plaza has taken on roles in drama, displaying serious acting chops that fans have always believed she had.
While I love pretty much everything she’s done since Funny People, even Child’s Play, to me these are Aubrey Plaza’s most memorable on-screen performances.
5. The White Lotus (2022)
Creator Mike White’s follow-up to the first season of the critically acclaimed The White Lotus has just concluded — and we finally know who bites the dust. Like the first season, the beauty of the show is that it’s not really a whodunnit murder mystery. It’s an episode-by-episode reveal of who is the most likely to die based on their actions in the eponymous luxury hotel. While hilarious, the characters represent some of the most unlikable people you hope to not meet on vacation.
Spoiler alert.
To the relief of Aubrey Plaza’s fans, it isn’t her character Harper or her husband Ethan (Will Sharpe) whose bodies are discovered in the ocean. They are far from innocent but they are at least some of the more likable characters on the show. Harper and Ethan are a contrast to the couple they go on vacation with — Cameron, Ethan’s rich and arrogant college roommate, and his manipulative wife Daphne.
Aubrey Plaza plays an employment lawyer who despises rich people. The only problem is, she is now married to one after Ethan gets an influx of cash through his company. To say that their marriage is frustrating to watch as they become more and more disconnected from each other is an understatement. But the brilliance of both seasons of The White Lotus is in the buildup to the final episode.
Aubrey Plaza doesn’t get to play a funny woman this time around. However, her performance as Harper is painfully relatable in a show where just about everyone is extremely privileged.
4. Black Bear (2020)
“You’re really hard to read,” Blair (Sarah Gadon) bluntly says about Allison in the dark comedy thriller Black Bear. It’s what we’re all thinking about Aubrey Plaza in real life and in this mind-bending film, she gets to play her true self.
In the first part of Black Bear, Allison is a director who goes to a cabin in the woods to work on a script. Her hosts are a couple expecting a child. And while they seem to live an idyllic life at first, Blair and Gabe (Christopher Abbott) have a rocky relationship that Allison plays with. The first half shows us the Aubrey Plaza we’re familiar with — one that is intriguing in a provocative way — and it drives a wedge between the couple.
The second half of Black Bear flips the script. Suddenly, Allison is an actress being directed in a film by her philandering husband Gabe. Blair is the other party. Allison transforms from being the seductress to the forlorn wife, as both Gabe and Blair manipulate her to create a better film.
Aubrey Plaza is seriously intoxicating in the psychological meta-thriller that is Black Bear. And it makes so much sense that her character, in both acts, feels very much like the actress in real life. “I wrote this for you and it’s very intense,” Lawrence Michael Levine said to her as he handed the actress the script.
3. Emily the Criminal (2022)
If you’ve been watching Aubrey Plaza act in raunchy comedies since 2009, you’d think it was unlikely for her to star in an action-packed crime thriller. But she’s proven us wrong in her most daring role yet in Emily the Criminal, where she plays the movie’s kickass but ultimately tragic titular character. Emily is a debt-ridden young woman who can’t get a decent job because of a criminal record.
She reluctantly gets involved with a credit card fraud ring to make an easy buck. The instant payoff is a major relief for Emily who has thousands in student loans to pay. She begins her own operations and pisses off the wrong people. The question we’re forced to ask amid steamy romances and bloody fight scenes is — is it too late for Emily to redeem herself? Or has she always been a criminal at her core?
A bloody-nosed Aubrey Plaza in a high-speed car chase is a scene I didn’t know I needed. She actually did a lot of her stunts, an impressive fact given that the indie film was shot in just 20 days. “The entire movie felt like we pulled off a scam. All independent films in some ways feel like some kind of heist. Like, ‘Wow. I can’t believe we got away with that.”
Emily the Criminal may be Aubrey Plaza’s first foray into the crime thriller genre but her convincing performance tells us it’s not going to be the last. Seriously, if they could reshoot Ocean’s Eight, she would almost certainly be cast as a badass con artist.
2. Parks and Recreation (2009-2015)
Despite a slow pilot season, Parks and Recreation went on to become one of the most well-written and beloved comedies of all time. Set in the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, this political satire mockumentary centered on mid-level bureaucrats trying to make their town a better place.
Aubrey Plaza played April Ludgate, who was introduced as a stone-faced apathetic intern. Over the show’s seven-season run, we watched April transform into not just a fierce and brilliant worker but a caring friend. It was her character development — well, really, it was everyone’s amazing character arcs — that made the show special and highly rewatchable. The writers really made us care about April forging a career path on her own terms, as well as her relationships with her co-workers who ended up becoming her lifelong friends and family.
But did you know that April, arguably Aubrey Plaza’s pivotal on-screen role, wasn’t even a part of the pitch for Parks and Recreation? In an episode of the Parks and Recollection podcast, casting director Allison Jones revealed that they didn’t have a role for her when she auditioned. “So we sent her to Mike Schur first and he instantly said, ‘Okay, we’ve got to write a part for this woman because she’s obviously so interesting,’” Jones added. “I think in the same week she got Scott Pilgrim and Funny People because she was so special. So that’s the story of Aubrey Plaza. She’s not different now than she was that first day.”
It’s hard to imagine a Pawnee without April, let alone a Parks and Recreation without Aubrey Plaza. Thankfully, because of the actress’s magnetic appeal, we don’t have to.
1. Ingrid Goes West (2017)
What makes Aubrey Plaza so interesting is the quirky sense of humor you wouldn’t know she had underneath her cool facade. In Ingrid Goes West, she plays the exact opposite. Ingrid is a self-described loser who fakes being cool to get internet points.
Starring alongside Elizabeth Olsen as influencer Taylor Sloane, Aubrey goes full Single White Female as Ingrid. She’s a lonely and mentally unstable 20-something who moves to Los Angeles to get close to an Instagram influencer. She stalks Taylor and buys what she buys to strike up a conversation. And when that doesn’t work, she takes her dog to orchestrate her way into Taylor’s life.
The movie is a commentary on social media culture. And if you think Taylor Sloane and her posse of fellow influencers and followers are enviable, you might not be reading between the lines. This is a satirical comedy in which none of the characters are actually cool outside of social media. Well, aside from the Batman-obsessed Dan Pointo who ends up becoming Ingrid’s personal caped crusader. Ingrid is at least aware of the fact that she’s a piece of work and it’s fun to see Aubrey Plaza play the uncool, cringe-worthy character for once.