The Parks and Recreation famed Aubrey Plaza has had her fair share of acknowledgment and appreciation for her amazing depiction of April Ludgate in the series. After that, she has never had to look back with one masterpiece after another in her bag. From The White Lotus and now going so far as joining the MCU with a yet undisclosed character.
However, it hasn’t always been all sunshine and rainbows in her life. According to her, there was a time when she had to live paycheck to paycheck just to survive. Thankfully, she is now rejoicing in the hard-earned success she has made for herself, and yet, it seems that it all still feels temporary to her, as she often thinks about what would happen if she lost it all one day.
Aubrey Plaza’s inspiring survival story
The actress claimed that coming from a financially turbulent childhood, she was always aware of the hard times life often presents us with. Her mom, who had a rough childhood growing up poor in Delaware, became pregnant with her at just 20 years old. Her dad, she claimed, grew up in a rough neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Her family, although struggling to make ends meet at first, worked together to push themselves ahead in life with her mother putting herself through night school and becoming a lawyer eventually.
While her father tried his hands at many jobs until made it big in the finance sector. “He worked his way up. Wolf of Wall Street-style,” the actress claimed. However, even with them finally doing well financially, and her father being a “wealth management … personal, whatever,” they apparently did not impart any particular financial knowledge to her.
As a result, Aubrey Plaza still does not know much about money matters according to her. Recalling her days working odd jobs in Queens, the actress claimed that she had days when she could only eat peanut butter scoops for lunch.
According to her, she used to get fired from her jobs a lot as she needed to invest a lot of time in going for auditions and so could not commit to the jobs, and if an employer could not respect that, she had to quit or get fired. As such, those days have left an imprint on her and she doesn’t, “honestly care that much about money.” She admitted that she sometimes fantasizes about it all going away and getting back to her roots.
“I care about it in a way of — I need to be responsible and I don’t want to be in that position again like when I was living in Astoria, going paycheck to paycheck,” she admitted.
She explained that “It’s not a good feeling — it sucks.” However, she is starting to get better at handling her own finances and even investing in real estate as a backup plan.
Aubrey Plaza’s successful Hollywood career
Plaza started dabbling in sketch and improv comedy back in 2004. She also had to go through a lot of internships and small roles in a lot of series such as The Jeannie Tate Show, Terrible Decisions with Ben Schwartz, Mayne Street on ESPN, and so on. However, things started taking a turn for the better in 2009 with her appearing in Funny People as Seth Rogen’s romantic interest.
After that, her role in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. She, however, tasted her main stretch of fame with her appearance in Parks and Recreation the same year in what admittedly termed as one of the breakthrough characters of the entire series. After that, headlining movies like Black Bear, the mystery series Calls, Emily the Criminal, and her reappearance in The White Lotus season 2, have set her ahead in her career and played a big part in gaining her an $8 million fortune.
However, she has also started investing in real estate by buying and selling properties worth millions in Hollywood Hills to make sure she keeps the financial influx continued. And now with her reportedly being tied to MCU through the Disney+ series Agatha: Coven of Chaos, she is sure to make a pretty penny if things go well.
Agatha: Coven of Chaos is expected to arrive on Disney+ this year, however, a set date is yet to be disclosed.
Source: The Things
