Aubrey Plaza on Being Grumpy Cat and Saying Goodbye to 'Parks and Recreation'

Aubrey Plaza's Twitter handle is @evilhag, but she's more sentimental than you might think. She loves Christmas movies, for instance, so when she was asked to give a voice one of the biggest Internet memes, she couldn't turn it down.

The result is Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever, which debuts November 29 at 8 PM Eastern on Lifetime. Plaza plays the voice of the frowning feline in this crazy, super-meta, über-odd live-action movie where she helps a little girl save her favorite pet store. She played Grumpy Cat much like her misanthropic character on NBC's Parks and Recreation, April Ludgate, but she refuses to be typecast; once Parks ends its final season this spring, the Upright Citizens Brigade-trained Plaza will put that blasé character on the shelf and explore roles that feel "scary to me in some way," such as the ones in recent independent films like About Alex and Life After Beth.

Plaza took a break from filming the Parks series finale to talk to me about being Grumpy Cat, what she looks for in her movie roles, why April will always be near to her heart, and how emotional this final season of Parks has been.

Let’s talk a little Grumpy Cat. So... um... How... why.... when... where?
Joel, how can I explain something that is explainless? Is that a word?

We can accept it.
I can’t tell you how excited I am for this movie. It was something that fell into my lap, and everyone around me immediately was like, well, no. You’re not doing that. That’s crazy, and I was like, oh, it’s totally crazy, and that’s exactly why I am doing it, and I just thought it would be really fun. I have a love for Christmas movies. I remember as a kid watching Christmas movies on TV, and I just thought, why not try to be a part of that this year, and in the best possible way, as a famous cat.

You told Jimmy Kimmel that you might want to have a glass of wine or two before you watch it. My wife and I didn’t, and I think we’re just sitting there... we’re laughing at your stuff, and we’re just like, this is the weirdest movie we’ve ever seen.
Yeah. Weird is a good word to describe it. It’s funny, because Jimmy Kimmel was the first talk show I’ve done for Grumpy Cat, and I have a hard time explaining the movie and explaining why it’s so amazing, but I can only say that it’s insane on so many different levels, and I think that people of all ages will find something funny about it.

Well, there’s a sweet story in there too somehow. They managed to wedge that in too. Idon’t know how they did that.
There is a sweet story. There’s about three different movies happening at once I think.

Had they already shot the movie before having you do Grumpy's voice? Or was it a matter of they found you somewhere in the middle of shooting the movie? How did the order go there?
They were just finishing shooting the movie when I read the script. So I had nothing to do with the shooting of the movie, but Grumpy’s part of the film and has lines, and all of the actors are dealing with the cat in the movie and in the way of the script, and when they started scheduling the voice-over sessions, it was after the movie had been done. So the first two, I did not [do it] to-picture at all. I just got in there to find my voice and experiment, and then, once I got the movie in my sessions and I started acting to the picture, I just went off the rails, and I just basically started saying whatever I wanted and rewriting all of my lines, and the director was really, really collaborative and really loved what I was doing, and we both just said, f--- it. Let’s just go for it and see how weird we can make this.

Because the scenes with Grumpy, she's just looking at people.
Well, that’s what’s so fun for me, because there was no syncing with Grumpy’s mouth, and I felt that because of that, because I wasn’t actually syncing to the cat’s mouth, it was really just the commentary track, and I decided, even if I’m not on screen, I can still comment on what’s happening. Why not? I turned it into a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 kind of thing rather than just a straight voice-over movie. So there’s a lot of commentary that I think people aren’t going to be expecting.

Well, it became very meta.
It’s very meta. Yeah. I mean, the script was meta to begin with because the lines reference it being a Lifetime movie, and then I felt like, let’s heighten this even more. Add more layers of irony and really just blow it out in that way, and I really did feel like, if I’m going to really play this character of Grumpy Cat and really become this persona, then I have to do what Grumpy would do, and I really, truly believe that Grumpy would hate the movie and would want to just s--- all over it.

There’s a little bit of April mixed in there, because I’m sure if April was a cat, she’d hate it too in a little bit of way.
Well, you know, I’m not kidding anyone. I don’t think I would be offered the Grumpy Cat movie if I hadn’t done the character of April Ludgate, and that’s fine, but I also feel that the timing is perfect for me because my show is ending. I have to say goodbye to April Ludgate forever, and there’s not a better way to go out than to do the ultimate grumpy movie, with the persona that I’ve created, and afterwards, it’s all smiles. I’m not going to be able to do that anymore.

Well, I don’t want to spoil it, obviously, for people, but there is one time that we see yourface. That really showed me how meta the movie was going to be.
Yeah, that was my idea. I was like, I would really love to cut to a shot of me in the recording booth looking straight at the camera and just shrugging and just basically saying, I don’t know why I’m in this movie. I thought that would be really funny.

On your Twitter you’ve gotten some responses that are "Is this the decline of your career?" or something like that, and your responses to them are pretty...what? Grumpy Cat rocks. What’s the problem?
Yeah. Well, the thing about the so-called Twitter backlash is really something that... I fabricated that myself, because most people, I think, on Twitter are really excited for it, and there were a couple of mean tweets, and I picked those out of all the good ones because I thought that it’d be funny to respond in character, and so, for me, it’s a game. I don’t think of Twitter as some kind of weird marketing tool in general. It’s my personal account, and I only do what I think is fun on it, and I just had a lot of fun responding to people because I just don’t think people understand what the movie is going to be until they see it. So, for me, it’s like, bring it on.

I noticed you had a couple pictures of yourself with Grumpy up on your site. I can’t believe I’m asking this question, but is Grumpy just a normal cat, like a nice general cat?
Okay. Grumpy is a two-year-old cat, and she is a dwarf cat. So she’s a very special cat. She’s really tiny, and she’s really cute, and she’s just happy hanging out. She’s really a mellow cat, and she gets pampered. Her family is always right there. They're always taking care of her. She’s not put in anyone’s hands that she doesn't know, and she’s got a pretty sweet life.

What do you think of the fact that they took advantage of the fact that she looked grumpy and they made an Internet sensation out of it?
I just think it goes to show you the power of the Internet. It’s totally ridiculous. You never know what’s going to catch on these days, and...I don't know. In some ways, it’s probably some kind of comment on the general psyche of America at this moment. I don’t know why, but that’s just what happens. Certain things just hit a nerve, and people go crazy, and for Grumpy’s family, I think it’s probably an amazing ride that they’re going on, and I’m all for it.

Would people be surprised that you liked Christmas movies?
No. No one would be surprised. I’m not really like my character. I’m not like Grumpy or April Ludgate in real life. I mean, I’m sarcastic, but I’m not really...people that know me are people that work with me. They don’t associate me with that as much as the public does.

I guess it’s just the holiday ritual aspect of it. Just doing the same thing every year was always such a comforting, fun thing, and I grew up watching movies. My mom is obsessed with movies. That was a big part of my household, is watching movies. So Christmas movies, I loved, because I was really into Christmas. I grew up very Catholic in a very Catholic household, and so Christmas was always a big time of year for us, and so, the combination of that with movies is my favorite thing ever.

What was your Christmas traditions back home in Delaware? Is there anything going on in Wilmington that usually would be the tradition that you guys would go to, or did you guys all go to Philly, or the city, or New York and do that kind of stuff?
There’s nothing that is out of the ordinary from other small to medium towns. I mean, Delaware, it can be a winter wonderland at Christmastime with snow and all that, and the community I grew up in was a very tight-knit Irish Catholic community in Wilmington, and I have a big family. So lots of holiday parties and stuff like that, but there wasn’t an event or anything like that, but yeah, it’s just a nice little suburban place to be around the holidays.

How many movies are you in that are coming out soon? I’m looking at your IMDB. There seemsto be three for 2015.
Well, I didn’t shoot a starring role this hiatus, but I did a couple movies, supporting characters. Hopefully some of them will get into Sundance. I’m not sure. I did one movie called The Driftless Area with John Hawkes, and it’s a drama, and I’m really, really proud of it, and I haven’t seen it or anything, but it’s a very different character for me...

[Rethinks response]  I’m just totally lying right now. I did do a starring role in a movie called Ned Rifle, which is a Hal Hartley film that premiered at Toronto in September, but it will actually be coming out in theaters on April 1. So I just found out. So that’s a really big deal for me. It’s a very different character. If you’re familiar with Hal’s work, it’s very in line with The Unbelievable Truth, which is the movie he made with Adrienne Shelly in the ‘90s, and it’s a dark, dark erotic comedy. So I think that will be very interesting and very, very different role for me. So I have that, and then I have The Driftless Area, and then I did a comedy this fall that is also hopefully going to get into Sundance called Fresno, where I play Natasha Lyonne’s love interest. I play a lesbian krav maga instructor, and I’m very excited for that too. Very different part for me as well.

What do you like about these smaller movies? Because I remember seeing you  in Safety Not Guaranteed, and the Duplass brothers really seemed to tune the role towards your sensibility. Are these movies more intimate?
I don’t really think of anything big, small or whatever. I’m really just trying to take what I can get, and I just always try to work with people that I really respect and do parts and scripts that are good, but for that movie in particular, that movie was written for me, with me in mind. So it makes sense that the character is a little bit more in my wheelhouse, but moving forward, when you say small movies, I guess you’re saying independent films.  I mean, big studio movies, they just don’t make that many good ones anymore, and most of them are superhero action movies and stuff, and those aren’t parts that I’m being offered. So if I was offered a superhero movie to play She-Hulk, I would do that in a heartbeat, but the scripts that I read and the things that I like to do are work with really good directors and material that I like. So, a lot of that tends to be more independent, because there’s just that whole tension between studios and independent films and stuff, but I’m not opposed to doing big, small, medium, whatever. I just like to do good work.

When a script comes across your desk, what are you looking for? Are you really looking for, something you've never done this before?
Anything that I read that feels scary to me in some way, I usually gravitate towards that. Anything that feels like it’s something I’ve done before, I usually stay away from that in general, but About Alex is a great example. It’s a great movie, if you haven’t seen it, and it’s a small movie, but it’s really, really exceptionally directed I think, and the reason I did that part is because that character was a 30-year-old lawyer, Type A, who was having her own little pre-life crisis meltdown moment, and it was just a part that, for the first time, I felt like, oh, here’s a person that is my actual age in real life and is going through something that I really can relate to, and I’ve never done that on screen before. So that’s why I did that part, but I mainly just look for things that I really connect to, and hopefully a lot of them are different.

What in particular was the part about the character, Sarah, that you connected to in your real life?
Well, just that moment when you’re turning 30, and you have oh, okay, well now I got to get my s--- together. I’m an adult, and what am I doing with my life? You know how people spin out when they’re in their late 20s or whatever? So I just really liked that journey that she went through in the movie, and I responded to it at the time. I think also it really depends on what’s going on with me in my own life at the time that I read things, and sometimes things connect to me at different times depending on just where I am emotionally, or mentally, or whatever.