"She can summon some delicious anarchy for the camera. “I’m way more socially, like, anxious and introverted than people would expect, I think,” she tells me over coffee. “I’m just as insecure as anybody, and I’m probably way more shy than people think. But obviously the way I deal with that is, like, extreme behaviors.” Her guiding philosophy comes down to this, she adds: “I try to maintain some authenticity, for better or for worse. That’s the goal. If all else fails, at least be authentic.”
Plaza rarely reads her own press, but someone forwarded her an LA Times piece about her bit at the SAG Awards. The story, by Suzy Exposito, was entitled “In Praise of Jenna Ortega, Aubrey Plaza and Moody, Deadpan Latinas.” Plaza beams when I mention it. “I loved that,” she says. “That shit is important to me, because that’s my whole thing. Even with April Ludgate, it was like, Come on. Sofia Vergara is not the only Latina personality. There’s other ones! A lot of the characters I play, even with White Lotus—it’s important to normalize that there’s all kinds of different Latina people. I mean, all my Puerto Rican cousins are, like, morbid. Morbid shit is going on over there!”
As Plaza and I commiserate about all the ways that Latinas can and do exist, her multiplicity comes into focus: her bicultural upbringing, her public and private selves, her ability to play taut characters like Emily the criminal and Harper the lawyer, snarling perverts like Lenny on the underappreciated sci-fi drama Legion, and more. What Plaza has done, and will do again, is let all these impulses coalesce.
“She is a warm and snuggly person with people she trusts,” says Amy Poehler. “Kids love her because she doesn’t talk down to them and she isn’t afraid to be weird. She cares deeply and works really hard. She has a good sense of humor about herself. But don’t be fooled, she is a witch.”
