All About Aubrey – V Magazine

Don’t take this the wrong way, but Aubrey Plaza is kind of a witch. Her ability to completely dominate her interviewers via deadpan aloofness, various accents and countless antics leaves her targets completely spellbound, a little scared and, yes, charmed. And she’s always been that way. “I think that’s just how I move through the world, I always go for the joke,” Plaza tells me V over Zoom. “I get nervous about interviews and the way I deal with it is by entertaining myself.”

In a now-famous pre-Emmy red carpet interview in 2010, journalist Michael Ausiello asked Plaza if he could see her ring. With a perfect mockumentary-style look on camera (refined over seven seasons playing the sardonic April Ludgate on NBC’s Parks and Recreation), and a devilish smile she raised her middle finger.

“The Judy Garland fascination started for me quite young. I was probably twelve when most of my friends started doing grunge and I was just really into old Hollywood.”

—Aubrey Plaza to V151 Winter 2024 Question

Ausiello was a bit confused — as it was clear that Plaza had taken control of his interview in just two seconds — and then cautiously said, “It’s actually kind of offensive.” To which Plaza replied with an applied bimbo playfulness, smiling and chewing gum: “It’s just a finger, it’s the only one the ring cares about.” While Ausiello was still talking, she walked away, turned to face the camera again and laughed.

It makes perfect sense, given her natural evil ways, that Plaza was just inducted into the Marvel Cinematic Universe via her portrayal of Rio Vidal, the Green Witch on Disney+’s Agatha all the time. The show’s title character, Agatha Harkness, played by Kathryn Hahn, is Vidal’s rival, and their dynamic is complicated — in a gay way. “Kathryn and I are both very intense in our approach to acting, so I knew it was going to be really charged,” reveals Plaza, adding that it was a “dream come true” to play Hahn’s romantic counterpart. At one point in the series, Vidal cuts open Harkness’s hand with a dagger and heals the open wound by licking it. Harkness calls her heartless. Vidal corrects her and notes that she actually has a heart, a black one, and it just beats for her.

If that doesn’t result in a mass enrollment of women into the Marvel fanbase, nothing will.

Agatha all the time also features Plaza’s former roommate, the one and only Patti LuPone. The couple broke up last winter for the entire Plaza’s Broadway debut in Danny and the deep blue seaand have been twin flames ever since. (Speaking of which status the two appeared on Hot Onesthe spicy wing web show, last September, and their relationship was morbidly entertaining.) Although they had shared a room—LuPone even washed and folded Plaza’s underwear—Agatha all the time was their first time having to act like professionals around each other. “She and I love doing stupid things and stupid characters,” Plaza says with the slightest hint of unexpected shyness in her voice. “We’re both, like, troublemakers.”

At the time of our interview, Plaza is in the midst of a demanding press storm. In just ten days she was on Show today twice — “Hoda was like, ‘You again?'” Plaza jokes. She also appeared on Daily show, Late Night with Seth Meyersand was interviewed by Times and NPR. Later that week, she did a six-hour shoot for V and a top secret performance at Joe’s Pub the same night. On top of Agatha all the timePlaza starred in the coming-of-age comedy My old ass and Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Megalopolis; she attended all three premieres during this week and a half, and no, they weren’t on the same coast.

Naturally, Plaza calls from her couch. “Baby, I’ve always wanted to be in movies,” she says in the crazy transatlantic affect she has in her back pocket. “That has always been the plan. But a Marvel TV show? I never thought I would do that. Fashion campaigns? I never thought anyone would want me to do that. I mean, I’m blown away that I’m in a Coppola movie.” But scratching off bucket list items isn’t done for Plaza. As we chat, she’s already moving into her next project, the ultimate dream collaboration for anyone with a flair for morbid, campy humor: a John Waters film.

“The Puerto Rican women in my family are sarcastic and funny. But for years and years the stereotypes of Latina actresses or characters have been so one-dimensional. Like there’s a kind of Latina woman that’s just not true.”

—Aubrey Plaza for V151 Winter 2024 edition

“I can’t think of anything crazier for myself than that happening,” Plaza says. “He’s in his mid-70s, but I actually think his films and his sensibility are so appropriate for this younger generation right now. I feel like they need a John Waters.” Gen Z totally needs another John Waters movie. But we also need a familiarity to marry the irreverent old school humor with a more empathetic yet frivolous je ne sais quoi. The perfect place for a witch of Plaza’s caliber to exercise her powers.

This story appears in the pages of V151: now available for purchase!

Photography Blair Getz Mezibov

Meeting Anna Trevelyan

V Magazine Creative Director / Editor-in-Chief Stephen Gan

Makeup Kathy Jeung (Upcoming Artists)

Hair Rheanne White (Tracey Mattingly)

Manicure Patty Yankee

Digital technician Chris White

Lighting Director Corey Danieli

Fashion coordinator Life Vital

Styling assistants AJ Grove, Angelina Khachaturyan

Production assistant Jelena Moldovai

Location ETC Studios