X

From 'Ingrid Goes West' to 'Emily the Criminal,' Aubrey Plaza Holds a Mirror Up to Society

Aubrey Plaza peels back the layers on recent roles, including 'Emily the Criminal,' and explains why she would have ended 'Ingrid Goes West' slightly differently.
by Danielle Turchiano — 
headshot-by-peter-yang-1

Aubrey Plaza

Peter Yang (courtesy of Independent PR)

Aubrey Plaza stole scenes from her earliest professional gigs (hey, 30 Rock) and became a breakout in a packed ensemble (hi, Parks and Recreation), so it was no surprise when she took the spotlight as a leading lady (hello, Safety Not Guaranteed). But now the actor-producer is really having her moment, with the fifth anniversary of Ingrid Goes West, the wider release of Sundance darling Emily the Criminal, and the premiere of animated comedy Little Demon all falling within the same month.

And if you think the convergence of content is coincidence, you haven't been paying close enough attention to Plaza's career. Not only has she been steadily working since 2006, but she has also earned rave reviews along the way and also increasingly embraced the behind-the-scenes role of producer through her Evil Hag Productions company. Each project allows Plaza to tap into slightly different emotions, attributes, and skills, thereby continuing to stretch herself and prove why she is so worthy of so many great roles.

"I always get done with a movie and go, 'Well, that was the hardest thing I did,' and then the next one is, 'Well actually, that was the hardest thing I did.' It just never ends. I don't know if it's just my own issue or that's just the glory of independent filmmaking," Plaza tells Metacritic.

Ingrid Goes West, which was originally released in 2017 stars Plaza as the eponymous character, a somewhat directionless woman who becomes obsessed with someone she follows on social media and literally follows that woman (played by Elizabeth Olsen) across the country to try to befriend her. It was also one of the first projects on which Plaza served as a producer.

Plaza pulls double duty again with Emily the Criminal, in which she also once again plays the titular character — this time a woman who gets involved in an escalating credit card scheme after she struggles to obtain a regular job due to an earlier criminal record — and in Little Demon, on which the multi-hyphenate voices Laura, the mother of the titular character, who fights her daughter's father from re-entering her life because he is the literal devil.

Here, Plaza talks to Metacritic about these projects, as well as 2020's Black Bear, from embracing the spirit of independent films on screen and off, to tackling non-traditional paths for characters, and why she would have ended Ingrid Goes West slightly differently. 

Emily the Criminal is, in a way, bookended by two job interview scenes, and what is striking is how Emily's sense of self-worth and what she values comes across clearly in both, rather than using the first one to just foreshadow a major change where, after taking on a life of crime, she has a change of heart about what she is willing to endure. What do you feel that says about her and her journey?

One of the things that made me fall in love with this script were those two interview scenes. First of all, as an actor, I'm just like, "Yes, I want these scenes because there's just so many levels to those scenes." The second interview with Gina Gershon, in a traditional film I think that would be the scene where the protagonist would would learn a lesson or something. She'd be like, "You know what, I'm gonna leave this criminal life behind; now I'm just gonna do the moral thing that society wants me to do." And I think what was so interesting about the script is that she didn't do that. At that point in the movie, she has become a boss, but not in a typical sense. So, my hope for that scene was always to find someone really powerful to play the part of Alice, Gina's character, so you saw the duality. [Alice] has done a traditional route and has become a literal boss in the advertising space, and then Emily has become a boss in her own right on the streets, basically. But neither is better than the other.

And they do recognize something in each other that bonds them for a second, partially because of them being transplants from the East Coast. What made you want to do an accent in the film?

It was written in the script that this woman is not from Los Angeles; she is from Jersey. And it was supposed to be very clear from the beginning because you want to feel how alien she is in that environment. And that was one of the reasons, too, why I wanted to do the movie because l want to expand, I want to try different things, and I've never really done an accent before. It was the first time I ever worked with a dialect coach, and it was basically me doing my [Robert] De Niro impression. I do it anyway, so I just figured I'm gonna do it on camera.

aubrey-plaza-in-emily-the-criminal-03-courtesy-of-roadside-attractions-scaled

Aubrey Plaza in 'Emily the Criminal'

Roadside Attractions

Because she isn't on solid ground at the start of the film, struggling to get a job with a criminal record, she could have been the kind of character who just lets things happen to her versus one who makes real moves and decisions. How did you calibrate how quickly she should come into her own?

All I was thinking about is the calibration of these little moves that she's making towards in that direction. And I think that's what's so exciting about this script: There are so many opportunities for her to bail and so many opportunities for her to be like, "You know what, this is like a little bit too crazy," or "This is too scary." But you just start to realize that it's just inside of her — that instinct or whatever label you want to call it. The thrill of what she's doing is almost more exciting to her than just the humdrum regular life. I wanted you to really get into her head and just see all these little moments that bring her to the end. And for me, that's always the most fun part; it's all about tracking that journey and trying to really find the truth in every moment so that you're not making these wild leaps of logic.

What label were you using to define that instinct on set or in your preparation for the role?

I think it's just survival. I think it's almost an instinct to survive and a desire for something else, or a curiosity for living. I think the movie does [raise] the question of, nowadays in the society that we're in, in the current times that we're living in, what is what is a criminal? Who are the bad guys, really? Because when you're up against this system and the economy that we're in with all these young people that are graduating, overqualified, with so much debt and no prospects and whatever, everything kind of gets flipped on its head. 

There's a monologue in the movie where [Youcef, played by Theo Rossi] asks her, "Well, what would you do if you had all this money?" And I love that scene because it really does make you think, along with Emily, "Well OK, so you have a lot of money all of a sudden — you can pay off your debt — but then, what is the point of all this?" And I think for her it's more than money. It becomes almost like an addiction to the thrill of it. Maybe she's an adrenaline junkie.

And yet, it also feels like it's more than just an in-the-moment thrill, like maybe she is finally finding a purpose. Because after she is robbed in her own home, she has a moment of fear, but she isn't willing to lose this new livelihood, so she goes after them.

That is the pivotal turning point in the movie where you do see her make that choice to go to the other side. It's like, normal people would not take it any further than that. That would be it. They'd be like, "All right, I just got robbed in my house, I think I'm good."

There's also a really poignant line about having to make the rules yourself because of how much people take from you, which feels like it has parallels to the movie-making process and the entertainment industry in general. Were those things you actually talked about when producing the movie?

Not in a literal sense, but there's definitely this unconscious conversation that we're all having when we're making a movie like this because we don't have the resources that a lot of the bigger films have. 

To be honest, when I read this script originally just as a producer, I had a very strong idea of how much money we needed to make this film the right way, and it was a lot more than what we ended up making the movie for because we couldn't get that much money. But we just made a decision at some point to just go for it and do it quote-unquote down-and-dirty style, and it did have that feeling of, "We're going to make the rules ourselves. We're just going to do this." So, there was a parallel with the journey of Emily and what she's going through on screen and then just the making of the film for sure. I wish we had enough money to have BTS filming of how we made the movie because it was totally insane. We made a lot of decisions that were totally in line with the spirit of what Emily's doing in the film, and I think for independent films in this day and age, it's a rough out there! You really do have to fight, and we fought to the bitter end; there were many times when the movie could have been shut down or we didn't have enough money or we didn't have this or whatever, and we just kept pushing, pushing, pushing and just doing everything we could, even if it was sketchy, to get it done.

What is your definition of sketchy in that context?

I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, but there's certain rules when you're shooting: There's rules about shooting car chase sequences and there's rules about shooting on the streets. Shooting in Los Angeles was really expensive; we were in way over our heads there. Day 1 on this film, we did some driving things: I got in the car and Jeff Bierman, the cinematographer, is in there with the camera, [director] John Patton Ford's in the back, just the three of us in the car, and I'm like, "All right, so are we just driving around the block? "They're like, "I think we're gonna get on the 10," which is a highway in Los Angeles. And that was the moment that I realized, "Oh sh--, we're really going for it, there's no turning back." So I just got on the 10. It was the spirit of the movie.

Similarly, I think back to Black Bear, and that also had a very independent spirit with much more overtly meta pieces about filmmaking. Yet, that movie felt more intimate and contained, given that it was set at a secluded home and for the majority of the film only featured you and two other actors, Christopher Abbott and Sarah Gadon.

Similar vibe, honestly, but really different film. We had a lot of our own obstacles. Even though we were in this contained set in this lake house, we were in the middle of nowhere in the Adirondacks. And when I say in the middle of nowhere, I mean it: 35 minutes off the main road, we had no cell service; it's really hard to shoot a film when you don't have WiFi and your generators are going out every couple hours.

We were living that film. There were moments that I felt like I really transcended reality, and I couldn't tell you what was real or not because there was a fake crew and there was a real crew, and some of the real crew became the fake crew. And so, at a certain point, I just surrendered to that process, for better for worse.

Emily the Criminal was much more physical. I had to maintain this stamina to get to the finish line because I'm in every almost every frame of that movie, and I'm producing it as well. So, I'd shoot for 14 hours and then put my normal clothes on and go figure out what the disaster of the next day was going to be. Black Bear felt more emotional and psychological, and I felt like I was on some kind of trip.

screen-shot-2022-07-28-at-12-37-31-pm.png

Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott in 'Black Bear'

Momentum

There have been so many discussions about the reality depicted in Black Bear, especially as to how your character, as a writer, is affecting the scenes we're watching play out. Were there moments where you found yourself shaping her or reacting differently than you thought you'd play her, just based on bouncing off of Chris or Sarah?

That movie was so close to home. [Lawrence Michael Levine] wrote it for me based on a lot of conversations that we had about my experience of working with my partner and his experience of working with his partner. We talked about Cassavetes a lot and about how complicated it is to work with your partner. It was a character, for sure; it wasn't me, but it did feel very close to me. And so, I took a slightly different approach to that movie than I normally that I normally do, which was a more experimental approach, and I worked with the Jungian dream [analyst]. The whole movie is like two nightmares combined into one mega nightmare, which is really dark, but that's how it always felt to me. So, I really surrendered to that process in that way.

In terms of Chris Abbott and Sara Gadon, they both worked in in ways that were really helpful for me because Sarah and I had a really different approach, but both really brought the right thing to the table. And then Chris, I felt I had a more similar approach to him, which helped me feel like that relationship was real. And so, all the dynamics really helped in every way.

Since Black Bear was based on real experiences of working with partners, where are the areas you found yourself wanting to draw a more distinct line to really separate yourself from the character?

I definitely think there were things that just weren't me at all, especially the first half of the film with that long dinner sequence. There were things about that, like philosophies that I'm spouting, that I definitely don't adhere to. It was really helpful to shoot the movie in order because I felt like the first half was really not like me at all, and then the second half, I felt a little bit more me. And at that point, I had totally lost my mind, so it was great. The first half is a little bit more intellectualized and then the second half is a little bit more just sloppy and emotional and raw, so I think it was helpful to just get that first half out of the way and have that separation and then just go for it in the second.

I want to go back to the idea of labels for a second to talk about Ingrid Goes West. When you were making the movie, did you feel the need to diagnose Ingrid or label her in order to embody her, and if so, do you think differently about her now, after five years of the influencer industry really taking off?

I remember when we shot the movie, I was very adamant about being specific about what her deal was. I didn't want the movie to just be like, "...And she's crazy." I wanted it to be specific. We never say in the film that she has borderline personality disorder, but when I read the script and dissected the script and talked to Matt Spicer about it, that came up a lot for me. It's extreme behavior, and why does she do these things; what could cause that? It was important for me to to ground her behavior in some kind of real mental state, without making it about mental illness. But ultimately the film for me — and the character of Ingrid — is a personification of an impulse that we all have with social media, which is that it feels toxic, like it's preying on your rat brain instead of your human brain, which probably knows it is not healthy to be scrolling and scrolling and comparing and obsessing or whatever people do on social media.

There's a dopamine hit that you can get from the likes and engagement, but then it becomes chasing a high, and a lot of people are not on social media for the good stories anyway, but for the mess, which has only gotten louder as time has gone on. In that sense, it feels like Ingrid Goes West was really forecasting these warnings.

I think the movie is definitely ahead of its time, and it's so interesting because I was not on Instagram when we shot the film, and I was so against it. And the ironic thing is that when it came time to promote that movie, I got so much pressure to join Instagram to promote the movie. And I fucking did, and I'm on it, and I'm promoting my things on it. I don't trust it, I don't like it, but as a businesswoman, as a producer, as a person that is functioning in the industry right now, I don't dismiss it because I want people to see my movies, I want people to buy my book, and I want to have some kind of platform. I do feel it's necessary. But I do hold onto Ingrid and to the feeling of just being careful about it and not going down that rabbit hole.

screen-shot-2022-07-28-at-12-32-27-pm.png

From left to right: Elizabeth Olsen and Aubrey Plaza in 'Ingrid Goes West'

NEON

Ingrid initially just wants to get close to an influencer, but by the end, she becomes an influencer herself by going viral. Do you remember any concerns or conversations at the time about giving her that kind of quote-unquote win?

That was a huge conversation that we would have, and for that final scene, I desperately wanted to have Dan Pinto, who's [played by] O'Shea Jackson Jr., show up, which he does, and to have a moment of her looking at her phone and then her looking at him. I wanted to feel that there's a slight glimmer of hope that she will choose him — the human that is in front of her instead of the phone. But the purpose of drama, it was meant to be open-ended to create this conversation. The movie is Matt Spicer's movie, he directed it and that's what he felt very passionate about, and I think there's there's validity to that because it is real in the sense that it's a double-edged sword. She was at a crossroads [and] he wanted to leave it questionable. I love the way it turned out, but if it were my film, I'm more of a romantic and I love movies with happy endings that have hope and that wrap everything up in the end, so I probably would have pushed it a little more. But it also would have been cheesy, I think, if she had looked at Dan Pinto and then turned the phone off. That doesn't happen; that's not real.

Up next for you is a something unreal in a different way: the animated comedy Little Demon where your character's ex is literally the devil and he comes back to be in their daughter's life. What is that relationship dynamic like over the course of the first season, and is this an opportunity to normalize blended families, albeit in a very extreme way?

That's the question of the show: Will they, won't they make this work? For me, the show is really a metaphor about divorce: A single woman is raising her daughter and her ex-husband happens to be the devil. A lot of people feel this way; a lot of people feel like their husbands are the devil. So that's the basis of it, and like I said before, I'm always more of a romantic, and when I think about the show and where I want it to go, I want there to be hope for this family. I believe that there's a reason why Laura and Satan got together in the first place: They couldn't help it, they're soulmates, I don't know. And so, I feel like it's definitely an opportunity to normalize a kind of f---ed up, fractured family in the world today. But they're definitely going to be going at it the whole time.

But she knew this day would come, and she's ready for it.

She's been waiting for this moment. She's like, "All right, here we go. He's back. Now I got to deal with this." But I think he likes it deep down inside. It's a really fun show, and I've known [one of the creators] Seth Kirschner since we were like 11, so we snuck in all these references to the town in Delaware we lived in. Now we've just got to find a way for Joe Biden to come guest star.

An amazing Parks and Recreation reunion!

Well, I've known him since I was like 16. He's from Delaware, and it's a small place, so you always just see him down getting pizza. "Hey, Joey, come be on Little Demon!" Let's get those multiple seasons going.