Aubrey Plaza’s commitment to her Dirty Grandpa character freaked out Robert De Niro. During a London Film Festival ScreenTalk session hosted by Leigh Singer for Emily the Criminal (which Plaza stars in and produces), Plaza reflected on her initial interactions with the Hollywood legend. In the raunchy 2016 comedy, Plaza played Lenore, a young woman interested in De Niro’s character, Lt. Colonel Richard “Dick” Kelly. Plaza revealed that in order to get into character, she became Lenore before the cameras started rolling:

Following their initial interaction, one of her agents told Plaza that they “heard Bob’s a little freaked out.” Luckily, Plaza had a chance to reveal her authentic self when De Niro invited the cast and crew to lunch at his home:

“I didn’t really have a relationship with him [De Niro] off camera because he’s him. I didn’t have time to get to know him, he shows up in a puff of smoke and there’s no chatting at the water cooler.” She continued: “By the time he’d show up, I’m in character. My character had one goal: To have sex with him. I was acting totally insane as the character because we were about to shoot. I don’t think he understood that wasn’t me. You’d think he would because he’s an actor and an amazing one.”

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Their relationship was quickly mended, with Plaza adding that after that the two “really got along.”

“I showed up and he’s like, ‘Who are you sweetheart?’ and after that he was normal. At first I think I came on really strong. I did some questionable things I wouldn’t do anymore.”

Plaza’s Expanding Career

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During the talk, Plaza also discussed how she stepped into producing and her future hopes to direct. Although Plaza’s first producing credit was in the 2017 comedy The Little Hours, she called her second producing credit Ingrid Goes West “her king of comedy”. Plaza said that after reading the script, she met with the film’s director Matt Spicer, and “demanded” to be cast in the film. She felt so passionately about the film, she also wanted to have a part off-screen:

While Plaza has succeeded in acting, with praise for her work on films like Ingrid Goes West and Black Bear, and conquered producing, she sees another role for herself in Hollywood down the line:

“I was just very determined to not only act in the movie but be a producer on it so that I could have more influence over the movie because I had a really strong feeling about it. I felt like I understood how to make it good,” she said.

Plaza, who is known for her sardonic comedy style, gained recognition as April Ludgate on NBC’s Parks and Recreation. She currently voices Laura on Little Demon and will star in season two of HBO’s award-winning series White Lotus. She has been cast in Francis Ford Coppola’s upcoming passion project Megalopolis. In Emily the Criminal, she portrays the titular character, a young woman with art school debt that turns to crime in order to gain financial freedom. The film premiered during the Sundance Film Festival, and was later released in the US in August. It will be released in England later this year.

“I wanna direct. I’m just very precious about it and I’ve been offered to direct a lot at this point but I just feel strongly that I wanna direct something I’ve written myself,” she said. “I have written something that I will direct, but I’m just very busy. But I’ll get there.”