Aubrey Plaza reveals the real-life criminal skill she picked up while shooting her new neo-noir thriller movie Emily the Criminal.
Aubrey Plaza reveals that she learned a real-life criminal skill while doing research for Emily the Criminal. Plaza became famous playing the sullen April Ludgate on the classic sitcom Parks and Rec. Lately however the actor has been branching away from her signature comedic roles to tackle more dramatic material.
As part of this ongoing quest to escape being seen only as the funny, weird person from Parks and Rec, Plaza is currently starring in Emily the Criminal, a thriller from first-time feature director John Patton Ford. Plaza indeed plays Emily herself, a debt-ridden L.A. resident who becomes involved in a credit card scam and finds herself being sucked into the criminal underworld. Peppered with social commentary, Emily the Criminal has made a strong showing with critics and currently holds a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Related: Aubrey Plaza Movie & TV Roles: Where Else You Know The Parks & Rec Star
Those good reviews for Emily the Criminal indeed focus largely on Plaza, who is being singled out for praise for her portrayal of a woman pushed to desperate measures in order to survive. And it turns out that Plaza’s buzzworthy performance is informed by a certain amount of personal experience that she acquired specifically for the movie. Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live with guest host Nicole Byer, Plaza talked about learning to make fake credit cards for real as part of her Emily the Criminal preparation:
I had to do a lot of research for the for the film and I actually had to learn how to make fake credit cards with the embossing machine. Because i do it on camera. So the prop master was like, “I'm gonna teach you how to do this but obviously don't do it.” And i was like “Mm-hmm no I won't.” But if things don't work out for me, just with this stuff whatever, I'm gonna get one of those machines because I know where to get them now and I know how to do it.
Actors learning a real-life criminal skill in order to more accurately portray a criminal on-screen is of course nothing new. Famously, Wilem Dafoe learned some real tricks of the counterfeiting trade for his role in William Friedkin’s classic action movie To Live and Die in L.A.. Later Friedkin himself claimed that some fo the counterfeit money made by Dafoe and the film’s crew, under the supervision of a real-life counterfeiter, was convincing enough that he spent some of it and never got caught.
It’s yet to be seen if Plaza’s fake credit card making activity on the set of Emily the Criminal leads to a great story about her actually using one of her own fake credit cards to make purchases. Her story is already pretty good though, as it demonstrates the attention to detail that was put into making Emily the Criminal. And it seems all that hard work, and occasional questionable activity, was worth the effort given those solid reviews. It doesn’t seem that Plaza will need to fall back on using her new criminal skill to make money given the new boost her movie career is sure to get as Emily the Criminal hits theaters.
Dan Zinski is a freelance scribe currently contributing to Screen Rant as a movie and TV news writer. He previously wrote for FanSided, The Viking Age, Lightly Buzzed and Dotspotter. His favorite actors include Greta Garbo, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Cate Blanchett, Groucho Marx and Richard Burton. His favorite directors include David Lynch, Orson Welles, Jean-Luc Godard and whoever made Night of the Comet. His hottest movie take is that Solo is better than Return of the Jedi. His hottest TV take is that Parks and Rec is the greatest sitcom of all-time.