With her deadpan delivery and eviscerating stare, Aubrey Plaza has been lighting up our screens since the start of her acting career in 2006, with her turn in cult comedy Parks and Recreation — arguably her most notable role. She's appeared in a number of films and TV shows, recently stealing the show as the very sarcastic and stylish Harper in season two of Binge's comedy-drama The White Lotus. Plus, she's just announced she's set to executive produce a TV adaptation of her movie, Emily the Criminal.
But while the 39-year-old is on top of the world now, this hasn't always been the case.
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In 2004, when Plaza was 20 years old and a film student at New York University, she suffered a serious stroke.
"I was going to my friend's apartment for lunch," she told NPR Fresh Air in 2017. "It's really kind of a very typical stroke story where it just happened mid-sentence out of nowhere. I don't think I had even taken my jacket off. I walked into the apartment. I was telling my two friends about a Hilary Duff concert that I had taken my younger sister to the night before."
Plaza remembers blacking out for a second.
"And then I remember there was just like a really loud kind of sound happening. And I brought my hands to my throat, and I was kind of making like an 'Ah' sound because I couldn't talk because the blood clot was in my language center of my brain," she recalled. "So I had expressive aphasia instantly, which means that if you're talking to me, I could understand what you're saying in my mind and understand how to respond. But I couldn't actually get it out. I couldn't actually talk."
At first, her friends thought she was making a joke because she was "always doing something stupid". But they soon realised it was far from a laughing matter and kept asking her if she wanted them to call an ambulance. "And just - I kept just shaking my head yes because I knew something was really, really wrong. But I didn't know what it was, and I couldn't talk."
When the paramedics arrived, they thought Plaza was dehydrated and on drugs rather than suffering a stroke due to her age. Yet the only thing she had put into her body that day was birth control pills - which ended up possibly being the cause of the stroke.
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Since she looked fine physically, Plaza sat in the ER for two hours before a doctor examined her. "But I couldn't talk, and I was confused. I also couldn't write. And so then a doctor finally examined me, and I believe she asked me to put my right hand on my left knee. And I couldn't do it. I was confused about right and left. And I think that's when everyone realised, oh, like, she had a stroke."
She stayed in the stroke unit for a few days before being transferred to a hospital near her family. "And the recovery was - you know, it was - there was no recovery. I mean when you have a stroke, you have a stroke. There's nothing you can do about it. Your brain has to heal itself."
Plaza said the blood clot area in her brain will never be fully healed, so she had to have cognitive therapy before going back to school.
"My writing came back, and I started talking again really quickly. I think I was lucky," she admitted. "I was so young that my brain healed itself really fast. So I was talking after a couple of days. But I still have - there's still certain, you know, things that only I would notice that are kind of residual from - left over from that incident. And since then, I've had some minor - they call them TIAs, which are transient ischemic attacks, that are tiny little strokes. So something's up with my blood, but I don't know what it is."
Even though the experience was terrifying, Plaza says it was also a good reminder of how precious life is.
"I'm sure that has something to do with my approach and my attitude about, you know, about everything. I tend to see the bigger picture or try to see the bigger picture and try not to take things so seriously and try not to get hung up on the small things," she told The Guardian.
"And I can't help but think that it has affected me in ways that I won't even know until later. But I do have an overall feeling of life is short. And I might as well just do as much as I can."
Feature Image: Getty.
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