Aubrey Plaza, best known for playing the deadpan April Ludgate on tv’s Parks & Recreation , scored her first staring role in the comedy The To-Do List , which features the actress’s very first sex scene.
“It was a nightmare,” Plaza said of the scene, as reported by The Huffington Post . “I was like, this is the weirdest acting job I’ve ever had in my life."
Plaza plays a bright high school graduate who is determined to lose her virginity before starting college in the fall. The film is based on the real-life experiences of director Maggie Carey, who says that while the film discusses sex and romance, The To-Do List “is not a romantic comedy.”
In an interview with The New York Times , Carey praised Plaza for “game for anything,” and spoke about how she brought a different perspective to the film as a female director. Carey considers herself to have been “sensitive to things that maybe a male director wouldn’t be sensitive to,” when it came to exploring losing one’s virginity from the female perspective.
“It wasn’t about love, she wasn’t looking to get married, she was just like, ‘He is hot,’ ” Carey said, speaking about the main character in the film. “Women have those feelings as much as men. You don’t see it a lot in this genre of movie, so that was important to me.”
As far as where the comedy could take Plaza in the wake of her Parks success, she says right now she is just enjoying the ride.
“I’ve somehow created a thing for myself where I can pretty much say whatever I want,” Plaza said. “And get away with it.”
Check out the trailer for The To-Do List , out this summer:
Image: NBC