Soon-to-be mother Aubrey Plaza, 41, recounted the “paternal” scolding her Parks and Recreation co-star, Nick Offerman, gave her on set.
“He scared me at first. He scared me a lot, in a good way,” Plaza, 41, revealed to fellow Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler on a new episode of her podcast, Good Hang. “He’s so funny, but I was always trying to replicate his behavior on set.”
Plaza, who was just 24 when filming for the show began, recalled a crucial piece of advice Offerman, now 55, gave her during an early season.
“I remember I was just sitting in my little chair, and I wasn’t doing anything for a while, and one of the PAs came up and was like, ‘Do you need anything?’ And I was like, ‘Uh, sure. I’d take a coffee,’” Plaza recalled. “And then Nick was sitting next to me reading a book, and he looked over, and he went, ‘Don’t forget that you can get up and get your own coffee. It’s right over there.’”
“I know that sounds kind of like an a-----e thing to say, but I didn’t take it like that,” she said.
The Emmy-nominated actress had just a handful of small parts to her name when she booked the role of April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation, the sardonic, unimpressed intern who works under Offerman’s Ron Swanson.
The White Lotus star recalled working alongside Offerman and Poehler as a transformative experience in her career.
“I was like, ‘You’re f---ing right. I don’t need that little PA over there to get to walk over there in my eyesight and pour me a cup of coffee,’” she recalled. “You get into that zone onset where you just turn into a couch potato, and it jolted me, like ‘I’m never going to ask for coffee again. Ever.’ And I never have.”
“You know how when you’re on set, actors get treated like babies, and it’s such a weird vibe,” the actress joked. “No wonder actors get so weird, because everyone treats you like a baby, like you can’t do anything.”
Poehler, 54, who helmed the NBC comedy as Plaza’s other boss, Leslie Knope, agreed that Offerman’s onset demeanor was fatherly.
“He is very paternal, and he was very paternal on set,” she recounted. “He was daddy energy for sure.”
Two decades after she first began Parks and Recreation, Plaza is becoming a parent herself. A little over a year after her husband’s death, Plaza announced that she was having a baby with her partner, Christopher Abbott.
“It was a beautiful surprise after an emotional year,” a source told People earlier in April.
Plaza discussed her pregnancy on Smartless, joking that she got matching ultrasounds with her dog.
“She had to get an ultrasound on her stomach. And then I got an ultrasound on my stomach, and there is a baby in there,” she quipped.
The actress said she was excited to have a child, adding that she’s always wanted to see “what that’s all about.”
