Aubrey Plaza on Scary Movies, Surviving a Stroke, and Besting Joe Biden - Men's Journal Skip to main content

Aubrey Plaza, the star of Child’s Play talks scary movies, surviving a stroke, loving Delaware, and besting Joe Biden. But first, the basics.

Age: 35

Hometown: Wilmington, Delaware

Top 3 Scary Movies

  1. Rosemary’s Baby
  2. The Shining
  3. Misery

I loved you on Parks and Recreation but have to admit I’m probably too scared to see you in Child’s Play—the eighth installment of the franchise about the murderous doll.

Don’t be scared. It’s just an innocent little doll.

Chucky is so creepy. Did dolls ever freak you out as a kid?

I’m not afraid of dolls, but masks scare me more than anything. The combination of murderers wearing silly masks while they’re doing awful things especially freaks me out.

Are you a fan of scary movies?

I love Halloween and the more campy horror, but I don’t love really, really scary movies or torture horror.

Those series are like candy; they’re just so entertaining. But I don’t seek them out. I don’t have a thing inside me where I’m fascinated by serial killers and murderers. I’d rather watch a comedy.

Yeah, real life can be scary enough. Speaking of which, I was surprised to learn that you survived having a stroke?

Yeah, it happened when I was 20 out of nowhere, a fluke. I was having lunch with a friend, and it just happened mid-sentence. It’s kind of like getting hit by a car. It’s scary to know that you could just be walking down the street, and then all of a sudden, you’re having a stroke. It’s given me a pretty different perspective on life after that.

How so?

I consider myself a more open person. I try to keep that feeling of appreciating life. I think having that happen at a young age, things kind of seemed more fragile after that, because I realized things can change in a second. But I mean, it’s not like every day I’m achieving my goal of living life to the fullest. I’m not an enlightened person or anything. I was already someone who was always interested in breaking out of the normal, expected mode of existing.