A resurfaced Aubrey Plaza interview from 2013 has fans shocked all over again!
After the actress recently garnered lots of media attention and fame from The White Lotus, it’s expected for new fans to want to catch up and learn more about her! In doing so, some viewers stumbled upon an old interview from a decade ago with former late night host Conan O’Brien — and guys, this would not fly today…
In the interview, the 38-year-old actress discussed her then-upcoming movie The To Do List, a coming-of-age movie about a young woman discovering her sexuality. Aubrey’s version of a fun on-set anecdote was revealing her masturbation scene was way more uncomfortable than it looked. She recalled:
“In my head, I envisioned a nice scene where you see my hand slowly go out of frame.”
Little did she know at the time, the director had other plans.
Related: Aubrey’s Viral Annoyed Face At The SAG Awards Explained!
The Parks & Rec star went on to reveal she actually had to masturbate in front of the cameras — for real:
“That’s what I thought I was going into, but then when I showed up, the camera was mounted on the ceiling, I was in my underwear and a Clinton T-Shirt, and there were a bunch of old men smoking, ya know, the crew guys. And then I went and touched myself.”
Writer-director Maggie Carey apparently sprang this on her when she showed up to film! WHAT?! She said:
“I thought I was doing one thing and then when I showed up, it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot. And I asked the director, ‘What should I do?’ And she said, ‘Masturbate, like it says in the script.’”
Yikes.
In case anyone isn’t familiar, this is NOT normal! When filming sexual scenes, everything is almost always simulated. Only porn actors are expected to actually “perform” on camera.
This wasn’t the only time the Scott Pilgrim vs The World alum spoke about the masturbation scene in particular, either. In another interview from 2013, she told MTV she had to go to a fantasy world in her mind to be able to shoot the scene:
“I’d say it’s an OK day. It’s a medium day. It was OK. When I’m doing things like that, I kind of go into a magical forest in my mind, so it’s almost like no one’s there anyway.”
Oof. Now we know why she needed to daydream during filming! She had all those old men eyes on her… Ew.
It’s a true testament to how far we’ve come. This was considered a funny interview moment back in 2013 — no one was up in arms, upset at the filmmaker. But now everyone is recognizing just how upsetting it actually is. It’s a really good example of why we need intimacy coordinators, a role that’s become commonplace in the past couple years. It’s their job to make sure everything is communicated between the actors and director so everyone is on the same page before filming — and no one is put in such an uncomfortable position!
Hopefully Aubrey never has to go through anything like that again. What do U think about this resurfaced interview, Perezcious readers?
[Image via The Tonight Show/Varsity Pictures/YouTube]
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