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PrintAubrey Plaza of NBC’s Parks and Recreation: Wilmington Native Is Building a Buzz in Hollywood
Wilmington native Aubrey Plaza builds major Hollywood buzz.
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On the Job Training
The character April Ludgate is famously droll and uninspired on NBC’s Emmy-nominated “Parks and Recreation.” Plaza draws on some of her past jobs and internships for the role. In addition to working at the video store, she did a brief stint as a hostess at Joe’s Crab Shack in Wilmington.
“They were not used to hiring someone who was so enthusiastic,” says Plaza. She was charged with being witty while announcing that tables were ready, so she came up with her own lines.
In New York, she was an intern at Post-it, worked in the design department for “Saturday Night Live,” and served as an NBC page. She claims she wasn’t a very good page, and got fired a lot in her intern days. But it’s all good. It serves as inspiration for April Ludgate.
After college, Plaza continued doing improv and seeking acting roles, ultimately moving to Los Angeles. Her big break came when she landed roles on “Parks and Recreation,” and in the movies “Funny People” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”
Her other credits include the film “Mystery Team,” and appearances on “Portlandia” and the comedic sci-fi Web series “Troopers.” In 2010, she performed at “A Night of 140 Tweets: A Celebrity Tweetathon for Haiti,” along with such comedy standouts as Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Sarah Silverman and Ashton Kutcher.
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