Among other things, Aubrey Plaza became Wow Platinum because "it felt like everyone was getting pregnant." "I was like, ‘Well, I’m not going to go that route right at the second, so actually I’m just going to go wild and I’m going to go back to work—really go for it,'" she told The Wall Street Journal about her decision to jump into full Ancient Roman regalia for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, finally out in theaters next month.
In a new profile, Plaza talks about getting the Megalopolis call on the set of The White Lotus, a Zoom date that caused her to miss Michael Imperioli's birthday dinner. After landing the part of "cable-news vixen" Wow Platinum ("I loved the name. I thought it was very funny," Plaza said), the actor began to prepare for several months of shooting in Atlanta. But while researching for the Cleopatra-inspired part, Plaza says she got another call: she had accidentally overbooked herself. There would be a few weeks in which production for Megalopolis and her upcoming WandaVision spinoff, Agatha All Along, overlapped. "Because I’m insane, I said, ‘Sign me up,'" she recalls.
Luckily, Megalopolis and Agatha All Along filmed "close enough to see one set from the other." Sometimes, Plaza would even play both Wow Platinum and her Marvel character, Rio Vidal, within the same 24-hour period.
Each experience gave Plaza something markedly different. For Megalopolis, it was the chance to work on something completely unlike the dozens of other films she's led in the past. "Like, ‘This is different. This is history,'" she said. For Agatha All Along, it was the chance to work with Kathryn Hahn, whom she also occasionally shared the screen with in Parks And Recreation. Plaza also really wanted to play a witch, which makes sense.
“When I think about movie stars and awards and being at that level, to me, all that means is just control over time and space and people,” Plaza told WSJ. “It’s all about the game that is being played, a game of, How can I get to a place where I can be really selective about when I go to work and who I work with, and curate my life?” It sounds like she's well on her way.
Despite dozens of setbacks and a great deal of controversy, Megalopolis will premiere September 27. Agatha All Along premieres slightly earlier, with its first episode landing on Disney+ September 18.
