Aubrey Plaza reveals her ultimate career goal: “I’m manifesting it, because I bleed for movies”
When it comes to career goals, actors often aim for the obvious: winning an Oscar, landing a lead role, starring in a biopic, earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or working with a personal hero. But for Aubrey Plaza, her biggest ambition isn’t about recognition. It’s about serving something greater through her work.
Ambition in the creative world is a strange thing, wherein even though any level of entrance to the world of filmmaking takes some degree of ambition, unless you have a family member to hold the door open for you, performers are often expected to act nonchalant about the whole thing. Because it interlinks with the idea of art, which should ideally be egoless, and actors are supposed to act cool and coy, often treated like they’re supposed to behave like mere vessels that art travels through, rather than being open about the hunger in them or the desire for bigger things.
You don’t often hear actors being open about the desire to climb the ladder, and instead, they’ll deliver some speech about wanting to tell great stories, or do good work, or follow their hearts to a script that speaks to them, but let’s be honest: everybody wants to level up.
In his latest press run for Marty Supreme, Timothée Chalamet is a rare name being upfront about this very feeling; as the movie’s tagline is ‘dream big’, it seemed to give him permission, as he’s been clear about his mission to win an Oscar, to grow his success, and to be remembered.
“I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats,” he said on stage at the Sag Awards. Looking his peers and idols in the eye, he said outright that he plans to be amongst the best and made it clear that he’s working and striving to be there, marking a rare moment of honesty from a creative about the lengths of his ambition.
Aubrey Plaza’s dream isn’t quite like that, formed less of an ambition-driven, restless hunger for more or greater. It’s not so much about fame or career success in the form of bigger parts with bigger directors, and while it still has something to do with the Oscars, it’s not about winning one but hosting it, a gig a lot of people actively avoid.
People who host the Oscars make themselves open to mass scrutiny as it’s a hard line to walk, having to try and balance humour that isn’t cliché, but that works for a broad audience and that still respects the talent and what everyone is there for. For Plaza, though, that tricky and weighty importance of the job is exactly why she wants it, because everyone else gets it so wrong.
“It drives me crazy when you see a bad Oscars show because this is the big event, this is all the most brilliant people that make films for the whole world, so can we not have them put on the best show?” Plaza said to the New York Times. It’s the biggest night of the year in the world of movie making, so Plaza is right that it should be a great night with a great host.
“I’m putting it out there, I’m manifesting it, because I bleed for movies. I care,” she added, openly and outwardly sharing her desire for the job. As an actor who cares so deeply about this industry, she truly believes she’s best poised to do it, and do it well; so far, the dream has yet to be realised, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get, so maybe someday in the future we’ll see her get it.
