Aubrey Plaza has been waiting to wade into John Waters‘ filmography for decades, ever since she first watched his 1994 satirical film “Serial Mom.”
During a visit alongside director Sean Price Williams to Kim’s Video at Alamo Drafthouse in Downtown Manhattan for its web series, Plaza credited Waters for inspiring her comedy taste in film.
“John Waters blew my mind with ‘Serial Mom,’” she said, adding that working in a video store while in high school was how she “learned about independent films.”
The “Megalopolis” actress added, “I was getting really into John Waters. I was getting really into ‘Waiting for Guffman’ and Christopher Guest movies. [But] ‘Serial Mom’ for me was like, oh my god…I was laughing so much. I thought it was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. Of course I watch all those other movies and I just think he just doesn’t care. It’s so silly and over the top and ridiculous.”
“Serial Mom” starred Kathleen Turner as an unhinged housewife. Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, and Roseanne Barr were also up for the controversially campy lead role at the time.
Now, exactly 30 years after the release of “Serial Mom” — and 20 years since Waters’ most-recent film “A Dirty Shame” in 2004 — Plaza will collaborate with the iconic auteur for the adaptation of his novel “Liarmouth.”
As announced in April 2024, Waters will write and direct the “feel-bad romance” centered on Plaza’s con-artist character Marsha Sprinkle. Waters told Variety of Plaza at the time, “I’m thrilled that she’s going to [star in it], but we don’t have the money yet.”
Back in 2022, “My Old Ass” and “Agatha All Along” star Plaza told Dazed that she emailed Waters “immediately” upon the announcement of the “Liarmouth” adaptation and begged him for an audition.
“You better let me audition for you. I even look like the girl on the cover [of the book he’s adapting],’” Plaza said. “I exclusively only audition for John Waters. He told me I’m on his list, but I want to be top of the list. I want to be the only person on his list. They’ve told me I’m this generation’s Kathleen Turner. I mean, come on — I’m a shoo-in. I need that movie.”
Other film roles that Plaza needs? Well, she really wants to work with Quentin Tarantino — if he would cast her in his 10th and final film. While at Kim’s Video, Plaza pointed out Tarantino’s first film “My Best Friend’s Birthday.”
“I’m still waiting for that call, Tarantino,” she joked of joining one of his features.
Plaza also divulged how family film “Corrina, Corrina” inspired a sequence in her first big feature “Safety Not Guaranteed.”
“One time I watched ‘Corrina, Corrina,’ and there’s this moment where Whoopi Goldberg picks an apple off of a tree and she turns around and throws her apple at the little girl and the girl catches it and looks at her, and then you realize that’s the moment in the movie when Whoopi has won her over,” Plaza said. “When I did ‘Safety Not Guaranteed,’ which was my first starring role in a film, me and Mark Duplass have a moment in the grocery store and I asked the director [Colin Trevorrow], ‘Wouldn’t it be really good if I got one of the cans and as he’s walking away, I turn around like Whoopi and I throw him the can and he catches it and it’s a moment where you’re like “Oh, we have a thing”?’ I totally stole that from Whoopi Goldberg in ‘Corrina, Corrina.’”
Watch the video below to learn about how “The Judy Garland Christmas Show” will be part of Plaza’s upcoming filmography: “I’ve got some stuff percolating,” Plaza hinted….
