![]() ![]() Receiving Independent Spirit Award nominations for “Emily,” which she also produced, and winning a SAG ensemble prize for “Lotus,” she’s garnering more accolades than ever before. Thankfully, she’s doggedly expanded Hollywood’s assumptions about what she can do, most recently with the gripping low-budget thriller “Emily the Criminal” and now with “The White Lotus,” two performances where she displays startling vulnerability and emotional nuance. No doubt the actress has also been misunderstood, having to escape a pigeonhole that her beloved April put her in. I think there’s an element of that with Harper - it’s sad and exhausting when you feel like you’re constantly misunderstood.” ![]() I think it’s also a feeling of being misunderstood. I mean, I had an incredible time - I loved this cast, I wasn’t alone - but, yeah, I think I did. “I felt lonely,” she says softly about her time on set. As Plaza puts it, “There was a learning curve for Will, where he would go, ‘Are you mad at me? Are you OK?’ And I go, ‘No, I’m not OK.’”īut Plaza wasn’t merely trying on Harper’s loneliness - it’s a sensation she knows all too well. I have to say to people, ‘Look, don’t take it personally.’” Her process wasn’t always easy for Sharpe, a director who’s not as experienced as an actor, when they’d shoot tense scenes. Whatever the scene of the day is really dictates how my day goes - it dictates my mood it dictates how I interact with people. “I’ve been called a Method actor - I don’t know how to define what I am,” she says. “There’s lots to dissect there, but I think what he meant was ‘I’m not going to cast you as a character that has some kind of extreme behaviors.’ I thought, ‘OK, well, nobody’s really a normie, are they?’” “He kind of made a joke, but he said something along the lines of ‘I think it would be really funny if you played a normie,’” recalls Plaza, laughing. It was a role Plaza’s good friend, show creator Mike White, wrote specifically for her. Mired in a flailing marriage, Harper feels abandoned and trapped. It seems even longer when you consider how far Plaza has come since - which brings us to her performance in the second season of “The White Lotus.” She plays Harper, a sharp, brittle New York attorney dragged along on a luxury Italian vacation with her husband, Ethan ( Will Sharpe), who encourages her to be nice to his college chum Cameron (Theo James) and his wife, Daphne (Meghann Fahy), both of whom strike her as rich dolts. The actor dishes about Italian excursions with her co-stars, being ‘suspicious’ of Marvel and why series creator Mike White is like the ‘Pied Piper.’ Television Hollywood can make you ‘miserable.’ ‘White Lotus’ star Aubrey Plaza just laughs it off What made it so easy is being next to Leslie Knope - I mean, if I had to go out there alone, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to. But it felt very satisfying to put on that wig and pull that hoodie up. “I had a moment where I was like, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ I really wish I had been in therapy at the time.” To reconnect with April’s mind-set, she watched YouTube compilations of the character’s highlight moments, “but I was like, ‘I hope I can pull this off,’ which is just so ridiculous. “I was terrified to play April Ludgate again,” she admits over Zoom from New York. The moment felt like a time warp to a bygone era, especially for Plaza. This wasn’t her first time playing April since “Parks” left the air in early 2015 - she was part of the show’s 2020 COVID reunion benefit - but it was striking to see her back as the iconic character, Amy Poehler’s cheery Leslie Knope by her side. But one of the evening’s highlights was during the “Weekend Update” segment where she effortlessly reprised her role as April Ludgate, the sarcastic young intern from “Parks and Recreation,” the sitcom that was her breakthrough. 21 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” wielding the dry wit that’s long been her trademark on talk shows and social media.
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