As we’ve gleaned from numerous listicles and YouTube montages, watching Aubrey Plaza just be Aubrey Plaza is a treat. But the actress’ eccentric persona is often just that: a persona. The White Lotus star got candid about dealing with shyness and insecurity under the public eye in a new Vanity Fair cover story.
“I’m way more socially, like, anxious and introverted than people would expect, I think,” Plaza explained. “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.”
From brilliantly deflecting some potentially compromising interview questions to purposefully freaking out Hollywood elite, Plaza’s outlandishness often boils down to quelling her own self-doubt: “You can see all the colors of my psychological state on display in any of these [TV] interviews,” she says. “It’s a struggle for me every time. It’s a struggle to not quote-unquote ‘give people what they want,’ which is — I don’t even know what they want — and try to have fun for myself without coming off like an asshole. I think it all just stems from — I’m scared. I prefer to be a character. I mean, that’s literally what I am doing.”
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But fans of Plaza can still rest easy knowing that the deadpan, milk-snorting, devil-thanking “character” we know her as isn’t entirely made-up, but rather more of an uber-exaggerated version of herself: “I try to maintain some authenticity, for better or for worse,” she clarified. “That’s the goal. If all else fails, at least be authentic.”
Earlier this year on Fallon, Plaza revealed how she lost a cast spot on Saturday Night Live in the home stretch of auditions; luckily for her, she wound up getting to host an episode, during which she reprised her Parks and Recreation breakout role, April Ludgate.
