Aubrey Plaza Was Once Asked By a Director to Masturbate On Camera for Coming-of-Age Film

Still a supporting character at the time, Aubrey Plaza was cast as Brandy Klark on “The To Do List” (2013). When asked about the movie, she specifically voiced remembering something rather specific that Maggie Carey had suggested. Specifically for one of the featured scenes dubbed “Brandy masturbates.” To put it in simpler terms, Carey told her: “Masturbate, like it says in the script.”

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A Questionable Interview With Aubrey Plaza

This bubbled over in a 2013 interview hosted by Conan O’Brien that as nature intended, recently resurfaced. Youtube viewers were left shocked. Aubrey, who was on “Parks and Recreation” at the time, went on to explain what made things so questionable. She mentioned how she “envisioned a nice scene where you see my hand slowly go out of frame.”

“That’s what I thought,” she told O’Brien at the time. “That’s what I thought I was going into. But then when I showed up, the camera was mounted on the ceiling, I was in my underwear and a Clinton T-shirt and there were a bunch of old men smoking. You know, the crew guys.”

Digging Even Deeper Into What Now Seems a Nightmare

“They weren’t smoking, but, my memory … and then I went and touched myself,” Continued Aubrey, laughing before suddenly turning completely serious in emotion. “I thought I was doing one thing and then, when I showed up, it was a whole different thing; it was a full-body shot.”

The film was originally decided to be about a curious high school graduate whose aim is to gain experience in physical endeavors before heading off to college in 1993. Both Plaza and Carey were at the time completely unknown talents, still hoping for that break into the film industry.

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A Film Close To Her Heart

“It’s pure fiction, but that point of view of Brandy Klark is something that I know very well,” she said, “being that I graduated high school in 1993 in Boise, Idaho … I feel like I was very accomplished but still totally boy crazy and also not getting anywhere with the boys.” It may seem while Aubrey Plaza laughed off the whole matter, others were quite disgusted, arguing that in today’s age, that would never have been considered acceptable.

“This would never fly in 2022,” one viewer commented on YouTube. “An actor being like ‘so what do I do’ and the director is like ‘go touch yourself on camera’. Without any kind of notice or warning that this is what they want to see? This would get that director canceled.”

Aubrey Plaza Spoke About The Script

When she was asked about her view on the script for “The To Do List,” Carey explained that in 2013 “when she read the script, she liked it.” She thereafter ended up directing episodes of well-known television shows such as “Silicon Valley,” “Barry” and Brooklyn Nine-Nine” — She has additionally always praised Aubrey Plaza’s talent.

Brave and Confident or Inexperienced and Naive?

“She was so brave,” Carey explained. “She was game for everything, you know, which was fun. And she had no problem putting herself in these very awkward situations. But, you know, it’s played for comedy and she just nailed it.” It was just so fun to work with her,” Carey continued. “She’s very gutsy.”

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