Aubrey Plaza Played A Bizarre Supernatural Prank On A Costar
Aubrey Plaza spent her downtime during the filming of the second season of The White Lotus by convincing her costar Adam DiMarco that some supernatural force was invading his dressing room. In a recent interview with GQ, the Parks and Recreation star revealed that after getting stir-crazy during filming, she took reed diffusers and arranged them in a “Blair Witch–style symbol” on the floor of DiMarco’s dressing room, eventually escalating to slipping spooky notes under doors and denying that she was doing so. As DiMarco put it, Aubrey Plaza’s bored prank got him to a mental place of “questioning [his] reality for a while there.”
Certainly, there is a long tradition of movie stars pranking their fellow actors, from George Clooney’s own supernatural-themed “joke” on his Ocean’s 12 co-stars to Arnold Schwarzenegger dealing with Danny DeVito’s behavior. Arguably, one can characterize Aubrey Plaza’s efforts to convince Adam DiMarco that some kind of ghost was haunting him in the same way, though one might question whether Plaza has ever heard of picking up a book or maybe sudoku.
One of the more interesting parts of the Aubrey Plaza GQ interview is her assertion that the service staff of the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace (which stood in for the fictional White Lotus Resort in Sicily) viewed her as “suspicious” and “sketchy.” Plaza says that she is indeed those things, and according to the interview, claimed that she was not pulling these pranks, even when the staff confirmed it and had video proof. Given that one of the primary themes of The White Lotus as a series is the divide between the privileged, wealthy patrons of the resort and the service staff that they assume to exist for their convenience, it is a bit of an odd look for Aubrey Plaza.
The White Lotus creator and showrunner Mike White describes Aubrey Plaza as a “disruptor,” using it in the way popularized by Silicon Valley executives to describe themselves. It seems that Plaza’s costars do not have animosity toward her over this remarkably committed series of workplace pranks, though Adam DiMarco is quoted as describing it as a “Murder on the Orient Express” situation.
It is interesting to consider how the current in Hollywood is not exactly conducive to elaborate practical jokes on one’s coworkers, and how something like this particular Aubrey Plaza bit might fit into it. More and more often, actors are being called out for harassing coworkers in an effort to fit the popular idea of Method Acting, though as has been pointed out, no one ever seems to bring Method to a role involving being nice to people.
Aubrey Plaza stars in the second season of The White Lotus, along with Adam DiMarco, F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, a returning Jennifer Coolidge, and many others. The show has already been renewed by HBO for a third season, which makes sense considering its critical acclaim, wide viewership, and sweep of the Primetime Emmys in the first.
