Aubrey Plaza Biography

Aubrey Christina Plaza (born June 26, 1984) is an American comedian and actress. She is best known for portraying April Ludgate on the NBC sitcom Parks and Recreation. After appearing in supporting roles in several films, Plaza had her first leading role in the 2012 comedy Safety Not Guaranteed. Plaza has a featured role in the FX series Legion.

Plaza began her career as an intern. After performing improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, she appeared in the web series The Jeannie Tate Show. She later appeared in films such as Funny People, 10 Years, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Early life

Plaza was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Bernadette, an attorney, and David Plaza, a financial advisor. She has two younger sisters, Renee and Natalie; the latter has inspired a number of Aubrey's comedic characters.

Plaza was named after the song "Aubrey" by Bread. Her father is Puerto Rican and her mother is Irish-English. She was raised Roman Catholic. Plaza has stated: "I was like the only diverse kid in my high school, and I'm half-Puerto Rican. But yeah, I have a huge family and tons of cousins in Puerto Rico." She participated in productions with the Wilmington Drama League.

Plaza attended an all-girls Catholic school from grades four to 12. She graduated from Ursuline Academy in 2002, and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. In high school she was student council president. While at NYU in 2004, Plaza suffered a stroke that caused temporary paralysis and expressive aphasia. Since then she has fully recovered.

Career

Plaza has had many internships, including an "intern[ship] for Samba Post-Its"; one day, her job at Samba Post-Its was to "literally wallpaper a bathroom with Post-Its". She also worked as an NBC page. She served as a director's assistant to writer/producer/director Bennett Davlin during the making of his award-winning short film, TC3.

Plaza has performed improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater since 2004. She also performed stand-up and has appeared at the Laugh Factory and The Improv. In 2008, she participated in the Improv Everywhere prank "Mobile Desktop", in which she and two other people brought desktop PCs, including a CRT monitor, tower computer, keyboard and mouse into a Starbucks and used them as people use laptops there.

Plaza starred in the online series The Jeannie Tate Show, and stars as Robin Gibney in ESPN's Mayne Street. She appeared in the first episode of "Terrible Decisions with Ben Schwartz" on Funny or Die.

She played Seth Rogen's love interest, Daisy, in 2009's Funny People directed by Judd Apatow. She appeared in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Derrick Comedy's Mystery Team, which debuted at 2009 Sundance. She appeared in a CollegeHumor short alongside Jason Bateman and Will Arnett.

She played April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation. For her performance as the deadpan employee, she received universal praise throughout the entire show, being referred to as one of the show's breakout characters. She also has a recurring role as "the Princess" in the comedic sci-fi web series Troopers on CollegeHumor.

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. In 2011 she appeared on Portlandia. Plaza appeared as a guest judge during a roast segment on The Next Food Network Star in 2011. She appeared in Episode 199 of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast.

In 2012, she was featured in Father John Misty's music video for the song "Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings" from the album Fear Fun and in 2014 she was in Cassorla's "Bona Fide" video where she also made her saxophone-playing debut.

In 2012 Plaza earned her first starring role in a major film, alongside Mark Duplass, in the comedy, Safety Not Guaranteed. Plaza played Darius, a jaded intern who answers a curious want ad "seeking a companion for a time travelling adventure". Her performance in the film was critically acclaimed, and Gary Thompson of the Philadelphia Inquirer questioned whether this role was out of her usual "pretty slacker" range but found her performance "compelling".

At the 2013 MTV Movie Awards, Plaza "jumped onstage and tried to wrestle the (Golden Popcorn Award) statue from Will Ferrell's hand" during his acceptance speech; Ferrell integrated the interaction into his monologue as a planned moment, but the unscripted interruption led to Plaza's ejection from the event.

At the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in January 2014, Plaza's film, Life After Beth, which was written and directed by her boyfriend Jeff Baena, premiered.

On September 17, 2014, Lifetime Network announced that Plaza would do the speaking voice of Grumpy Cat in their upcoming original movie Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever. The film premiered on November 29, 2014 and received generally negative reviews.

She starred in Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates alongside Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick and Adam DeVine. The film was released on July 8, 2016. Her role as the rebellious Tatiana earned her critical praise.

In 2016, she has the only speaking line in a commercial for the Apple iPhone 6s, demonstrating "I'm peeking my flight. I'm not peeking my flight. I'm peeking my . . . wait, I missed my flight."

She was a guest star on HarmonQuest in 2016, an animated Pathfinder show that enlists a new star guest each episode and then usually kills off their guest in the end. She played a gnome named "Hawaiian Coffee" who helps the heroes escape from jails using magic, alchemy, and even bomb potions.

On February 8, 2017, it was announced that Plaza would star alongside Emile Hirsch in indie comedy An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn.

Personal life

Plaza has said her "first love" was actor and musician John Gallagher, Jr., whom she grew up with. He asked her out at age 13 with a song he wrote and sang it to her in an Irish pub.

Plaza previously dated fellow actor Michael Cera for a year and a half after the two met on the set of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Aubrey said that in 2010, the two nearly got married in Vegas.

Plaza has been dating writer/director Jeff Baena since 2011. They live together and work together often.

Plaza was a founding member of the Los Angeles-based basketball team the Pistol Shrimps, alongside actresses Molly Hawkey and Angela Trimbur. After a torn ACL, she decided to take her talents to the rival team The Spice Sqirls.

Regarding her sexuality, Plaza told The Advocate in 2016, "I fall in love with girls and guys. I can't help it."

Filmography

Film

Year	Film	Role	Notes	Refs
2006	Killswitch	Girl with Head Wound	Short film
2006	In Love	Julie	Short film
2009	Mystery Team	Kelly Peters
2009	Funny People	Daisy Danby
2010	Pete Carroll's Trip to Seattle Delayed	Herself
2010	Scott Pilgrim vs. the World	Julie Powers
2011	Damsels in Distress	Debbie
2011	Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You	Real Estate Agent
2012	Safety Not Guaranteed	Darius Britt
2012	A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III	Marnie
2011	10 Years	Olivia
2013	From Up on Poppy Hill	Sachiko Hirokouji	English dub
2013	She Said, She Said	Woman in Park	Short film
2013	Failure	Woman	Short film
2013	The End of Love	Herself
2013	The To Do List	Brandy Klark
2013	Charlie Countryman	Ashley
2013	Monsters University	Claire Wheeler	Voice
2013	Center Jenny	Monika Nark
2014	Life After Beth	Beth Slocum
2014	About Alex	Sarah
2014	Ned Rifle	Susan
2014	Playing It Cool	Mallory
2015	Addicted to Fresno	Kelly
2015	The Driftless Area	Jean
2016	Dirty Grandpa	Lenore
2016	Joshy	Jena
2016	The Pistol Shrimps	Herself	Documentary
2016	Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates	Tatiana
2017	The Little Hours	Fernanda	Also producer
2017	Ingrid Goes West	Ingrid Thorburn	Also producer
2017	An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn	Lulu Danger	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2006	30 Rock	NBC page	Episode: "Tracy Does Conan"
2009-2015	Parks and Recreation	April Ludgate	124 episodes Nominated"?ALMA Award for Favorite TV Actress"?Supporting Role (2011) Nominated"?ALMA Award for Favorite TV Actress"?Leading Role In A Comedy (2012) Nominated"?Imagen Award for Best Supporting Actress"?Television (2010, 2012-2013)
2011	Portlandia	Beth / Bookstore Customer	2 episodes
2011	Food Network Star	Judge	Episode 9: "Comedy Roast"
2012	NTSF:SD:SUV::	The Rememberer	Episode: "Wasila Hills Cop"
2013-2014	The Legend of Korra	Eska (voice)	12 episodes
2013	Drunk History	Sacagawea	Episode: "Nashville"
2013	Maron	Aubrey Plaza	Episode: "Jen Moves to L.A."
2014-2015	Welcome to Sweden	Herself	6 episodes
2014	Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever	Grumpy Cat (voice)	Television film
2015	Golan the Insatiable	Dylan Beekler (voice)	6 episodes
2015	Castle	Lucy (voice)	Uncredited Episode: "Heartbreaker"
2016	SpongeBob SquarePants	Nocturna (voice)	Episode: "Mall Girl Pearl"
2016	Criminal Minds	Cat Adams; Miss 45	Episode: "Entropy"
2016	Comedy Bang! Bang!	Lady Aubrey	Episode: "Aubrey Plaza Wears a Velvet Off-the-Shoulder Gown With Flowers in Her Hair"
2016	Chelsea	Herself / Guest	Episode: "Tarzan, Mars & Aubrey Plaza"
2016	RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars	Herself / Guest Judge	Episode: "Family That Drags Together"
2016	Drunk History	Aaron Burr	Episode: "Hamilton"
2017	Legion	Lenny Busker

Music videos

Year	Title	Role	Artist(s)
2012	"Hollywood Cemetery Forever Sings"	Girl	Father John Misty
2013	"Rouse Yourself"	Girl	JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound