Aubrey Plaza on Rejection, Tina Fey, and Safety Not Guaranteed
Photo: Getty Pictures
Aubrey Plaza—the actress synonymous with deadpan comedy—gets her most significant break however (yes, arguably bigger than her break-out role on NBC’s Parks and Recreation) she gets to carry a function film. “I’m just so thankful I got the chance to play a lead in a film, because that’s like my dream, you know? When you’re on a Tv show and you play this kind of character, people cannot get past it sometimes. So, to have people take a danger on me was genuinely excellent.”
The film in question, Safety Not Guaranteed, which fictionalizes a back story to the infamous, ’90s classified ad—“WANTED: A person to go back in time with me. This is not a joke… You will get paid following we get back. Should bring your personal weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only completed this as soon as before”—in Seattle’s survivalist magazine, Backwoods House, also provided plum roles for fellow actors Jake Johnson and Mark Duplass but it’s Plaza who gets to show off her talents most.
“To speak candidly, when I got the script, I knew that Aubrey could pull of the 1st half of the movie—when it’s a tiny more of that deadpan, cynical girl,” Duplass said. “But I was so curious as to what was going to come about when she really had to blossom emotionally. And without understanding her, I was like, ‘I do not know if she’ll pull this off.’”
“But I feel that’s component of the key to this movie,” he continued. “As [Plaza’s character] Darius transforms in the film, you get to watch Plaza do one thing totally different.”
ELLE sat down with the newly-exposed chameleon actress—who pulls off romance, investigative reporting, and time travel in the film—to talk about her name, handling rejection, and why posing for Maxim won’t be her next move.
ELLE: You character, Darius, has a exclusive name how do you really feel about Aubrey?
Aubrey Plaza: I like my name. My mom named me right after a song by the 1970s group Bread. So, it’s meaningful, and I like the song. It’s a enjoy song—kind of—but it is kind of depressing and dark. She was twenty years old when she had me, so it does sort of give me an concept of what she was like back then.
ELLE: What were your initial thoughts when you got the script?
AP: I loved the script. None of the characters fit into a box. For my character, in her life, there’s absolutely nothing type of interesting happening for her, and then all of the sudden she gets to play out this other function and that is what brought her out of her shell—so perhaps it’s a weird metaphor for myself.
ELLE: Darius gets labeled “not a top quality employ.” Has that ever happened to you?
AP: With true life jobs—waitressing jobs, temp jobs, factors like that—I normally hear that right after I get hired and then I get fired. But I’m pretty great at getting jobs. I’m fairly excellent at weaseling my way into a job, even if I have no organization being there. But I feel like I’ve truly heard that far more in the acting world—not finding parts that I genuinely want or becoming rejected as an actor over and over once again.
ELLE: Is there ever any feedback with the rejection?
AP: Before—when I was genuinely struggling and attempting to have a big break—there’s so a lot rejection. I’m kind of a extremely specific—I don’t fit into a issue. It is nearly like I had to produce my own thing, since I can’t compete with certain people. And it’s so personal. You get rejected for so many reasons—like physical motives or whatever. But, I assume it is great to be rejected builds character.
ELLE: Darius has a deadpan line, exactly where she accuses Jake Johnson’s character of “dangling my vagina out there like bait.” How do you feel about becoming a sex symbol?
AP: I don’t have much to show, in that sense. Tina Fey is a single of my heroes. She once did an interview, or something that I read, exactly where she was like, “Never do Maxim, ever. I will in no way do it, and it is not good for girls.” I do not want to place words in her mouth and I forget what it was precisely, but that stuck in my head, because I’ve been asked to do Maxim prior to.
ELLE: How did they method you about disrobing?
AP: They just ask you, and they say, ‘You’re not going to be naked it is going to be tasteful. We have these truly intriguing concepts.’ And you can get caught up in that. And believe, possibly it will be great, since you do, as an actress, you do want people to be in a position to see you that way, due to the fact that’s just the reality it’s beneficial to be sexy due to the fact that’s what individuals want. So, it is kind of enticing. But then when you stand back from it, “No, I’m not going to do Maxim.” That is so unnecessary… I mean possibly someday I’ll play a stripper, but I’ll have an intriguing take on it.
ELLE: Has anybody ever sung to you, like Kenneth sings to Darius?
AP: When I was thirteen, the initial guy I ever had be my boyfriend asked me out through a song he sang on stage in front of folks. Cut to years later, and it is Johnny Gallagher, Jr. who won a Tony for Spring Awakening. I still have an audio-cassette of the song he wrote for me, and it’s referred to as, “When We Get Married.”
ELLE: What’s yet another issue most people don’t know about you?
AP: It is really weird, simply because when you speak to my mom—people ask my mom, like, “What was she like when she was a kid?” I was truly shy. I’m really a shy person, but not, or something—I do not know. I think that’s why I’m so awkward in interviews and on late night Tv shows or whatever, because I don’t truly enjoy getting myself in these conditions. So, I tend to play a various character or make some weird efficiency out of it, simply because that is far more enjoyable for me.
Safety Not Guaranteed hits theaters today.