PLAZA'S PURSUIT,
Aubrey Plaza plays celeb stalker in ‘Ingrid Goes West’
Call this Aubrey Plaza's most excellent, “crazy, productive” sumCmer. “Ingrid Goes West” (now in theaters) is a virtual tour de force for the comedic actress best known for her role in the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.”
Her Ingrid is a celebrity stalker just released from a mental institution who insinuates herself into the orbit of an upbeat reality lifestyle guru (Elizabeth Olsen, also currently onscreen in “Wind River”).
Plaza, 33, also heads one of summer's hit indie comedies, “The Little Hours,” in which her raunchy 13th century Italian nun hotly pursues Dave Franco.
“Ever since `Parks and Recreation' ended, my schedule just opened up,” Plaza said last week while promoting “Ingrid.” “It allowed me to go after movies I wouldn't have been able to go after before.
“Now I've just been working really hard. I still have to fight for what I want, but I was so lucky to have two movies where I had some control this year that allowed me to play two different, cool characters.”
Asked whether Ingrid is crazy, Plaza hedged.
“I don't know about that word. That word can mean a lot of things. She's troubled for sure. She is someone dealing with mental illness, depression, social anxiety, all kinds of things.
“When you give a character like that a phone and they're exposed to social media and Instagram — in the hands of someone like that, things can get really crazy, I guess.”
A stalker made David Letterman's life miserable for years. Another murdered 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer in 1989. “Ingrid” extends its stalker some sympathy.
“We all had a lot of compassion for her,” Plaza said. “For us, Ingrid is the personification of all of those unhealthy impulses you can have on social media. I think we can all relate to going online, looking at other people's lives and wanting what they have or wanting to be them.
“Yet most healthy people are stable enough to not go down those rabbit holes on Instagram. But Ingrid can't help herself. She's kind of the extreme version of that. That's why, in a way, you're rooting for her. Her intentions are pure, and she's coming from a place of loneliness and insecurity, which we all have at different times in our lives.”