Aubrey Plaza praises Donald Glover for helping her break Hollywood
Aubrey Plaza is the rising star catching every producer’s eye at the moment and the former Parks and Recreation hero credits Donald Glover as the Svengali behind her ascendancy.
The pair go right back to the start of their careers when they performed together at the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York as part of the comedy clan the Mystery Team. And then came a surprise big break starring alongside Seth Rogan and Adam Sandler in Funny People.
Albeit some critics have questioned just how much of a blessing Funny People could actually be, it got Plaza’s foot in the ever-elusive Hollywood door, and she told MovieMaker: “Everything goes back to Donald Glover for some reason.”
Continuing: “Donald actually taped my [Funny People] audition, which is really funny to think about now. He taped me and did Seth Rogen’s lines.” And the rest nearly turned out to be history.
As she explained: “I sent it in, and then Allison Jones, who was casting Funny People at the time, who’s like this huge comedy casting director, said, ‘Judd [Apatow] really likes your tape, but he needs to see you do standup because the character is a standup comedian, and they need to cast someone that does standup.’”
This put Plaza in a tricky position. I was not a standup comedian at the time, but I just decided, Okay, I’m just going to pretend to be a standup comedian,” Plaza continued. She passed the test and has been grateful to Glover for the support he showed ever since.
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