The only thing that Plaza fears when she signs onto a new project is that the writers will change the character that she fell in love with to be more like her.
“A lot of times, I’ll be talking about a project with someone, and they’ll go,” the ‘We’ll tailor it just for you! We’ll rewrite it just for you!’ And that’s my nightmare. I’m like, ‘I don’t want you to do that. You don’t know who I am — you think you know, but you don’t.’ I’m an actor — just let me act.”
Luckily, “Emily the Criminal” writer-director John Patton Ford didn’t alter his protagonist to suit Plaza. Perhaps this is why the actress agreed to sign on as a producer as well. She didn’t care that Emily was morally reprehensible — that was just another difference she could work to embody.
“I don’t judge the characters that I play, ever. It’s not helpful to do that,” the “Parks and Recreation” actress explained to Entertainment Weekly. “You have to understand why they’re doing something, and then you have to empathize with it. And I found her to be incredibly sympathetic because she’s just surviving and she’s up against a system that is broken.”
