When Aubrey Plaza read the script for \u201cEmily the Criminal,\u201d <\/a>an electric Los Angeles-set thriller about a young woman with a criminal record, a mountain of student debt and few job prospects, she knew she wanted to take on the role \u2014 in large part because it was something different, something she hadn\u2019t tackled before.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of times,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019ll be talking about a project with someone, and they\u2019ll go, \u2018We\u2019ll tailor it just for you! We\u2019ll rewrite it just for you!\u2019 And that\u2019s my nightmare. I\u2019m like, \u2018I don\u2019t want you to do that. You don\u2019t know who I am \u2014 you think you know, but you don\u2019t.\u2019 I\u2019m an actor \u2014 just let me act.\u201d<\/p>\n The 38-year-old star got her wish, resulting in one of 2022\u2019s most startling performances. Although best known for her sardonic turns on \u201cParks and Recreation\u201d and in idiosyncratic indies such as \u201cBlack Bear,\u201d Plaza found a steelier, more desperate gear as the financially strapped Emily, who gets sucked into the black-market world of \u201cdummy shopping,\u201d where stolen credit card numbers are used to purchase high-end goods. Also serving as a producer, which she\u2019s done on several of her recent pictures, Plaza is both rawer and more vulnerable in \u201cEmily the Criminal\u201d than she\u2019s ever been, earning acting nominations for the Gotham and Independent Spirit awards.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t really think about how I was going to play it,\u201d she says. \u201cI just knew that I wanted to be her.\u201d Eventually, she and writer-director John Patton Ford also realized that Theo Rossi, who plays Youcef, the head of this criminal operation, whose interest in Emily blossoms from a business partnership into a romance, would be the perfect co-star.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn called me after he met Theo and was like, \u2018This is our guy,\u2019\u201d she says during a mid-December video call. \u201cWhen I got on a Zoom with Theo, he started giving me s\u2014 and busting my b\u2014. It just felt like we knew each other \u2014 we were super comfortable sparring immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Rossi, who received a Spirit nomination as well, smiles as Plaza relates that anecdote, adding, \u201cThe second we got on [the call], it was like, \u2018OK, we need to do this. I don\u2019t know if anyone will ever see it, but we\u2019re going to make something cool.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n But to get to the point of casting Rossi, Plaza first had to spend years trying to secure \u201cEmily the Criminal\u2019s\u201d financing. Partly, the difficulty was first-time feature filmmaker Ford\u2019s lack of a track record. But, as Plaza notes, \u201cI think it was [also] a me problem. It\u2019s always interesting what position you\u2019re in as an actor, what number you can greenlight a movie at \u2014 it changes all the time. And I think it was a script problem: It\u2019s an action movie, there\u2019s car-chase sequences, and I basically said, \u2018I want to make this movie for $5 million or more.\u2019 I wanted it to look good. It was just hard \u2014 the independent film business is rough, and it\u2019s been rough out there for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n The movie examines the criminal underworld with clear-eyed bluntness as the seemingly unassuming Emily discovers, to her shock, that she can acquit herself nicely around dangerous individuals. But for Rossi, whose Youcef has gotten involved in dummy shopping because he\u2019s an immigrant seeking a piece of the American dream, the character\u2019s struggles resonated with his own upbringing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve grown up around every level of criminal, from white-collar to petty thieves to full-blown lock-up, life-in-prison criminals,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t want to be in criminal situations. Some of the best people I\u2019ve ever met have been in the criminal element \u2014 they have dreams and they have hopes, but they\u2019re in a bad position. What I loved so much was that [Youcef] doesn\u2019t want to be in this life \u2014 he just wants a better life for his mom, which is so admirable.\u201d<\/p>\n Theo Rossi and Aubrey Plaza get caught up in illegal schemes in \u201cEmily the Criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n (Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n The disarming sweetness Rossi brings to Youcef is juxtaposed with the rattling, barely concealed anxiety Plaza lends to Emily, who must navigate several frightening situations, from stealing a car to being assaulted by crooks in her apartment, never once allowing herself to lose her cool. Asked how she harnessed such a white-knuckle performance, Plaza says, \u201cI think the nature of the production came into play,\u201d an acknowledgment that \u201cEmily the Criminal,\u201d now streaming on Netflix, was filmed in just three weeks. \u201cEvery day was really hard. We were in all the real locations \u2014 the actors that we had were so great that I felt transported. Craig Stark, a brilliant actor who breaks into my apartment, when I saw him, I immediately knew, \u2018This is going to be a really long night for me, this is going to be tough, this feels really real.\u2019 I allowed myself to just surrender to the circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as surprising as Emily\u2019s embrace of the criminal life is her growing attraction to Youcef, who starts off as her prickly boss but soon reveals his sensitive side. The characters\u2019 palpable sexual chemistry seems to be a byproduct of the ribbing the actors gave each other in their initial Zoom meeting, but what adds spark is the question of whether Emily and Youcef\u2019s courtship is actually true love \u2014 or if they\u2019re just two opportunists both longing to break free of financial hardships.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m such a romantic, I always want to root for the love story,\u201d Plaza offers. \u201c[What] was the most appealing thing about this movie is this unexpected love story. That\u2019s why people go to the movies \u2014 they want to watch people fall in love. I think it was a real love story.\u201d<\/p>\n Rossi doesn\u2019t entirely agree. \u201cIt\u2019s a complicated thing,\u201d he replies. \u201cSome people who are married for 30 years, there\u2019s something they need from each other. And I think that there is a need that [Emily and Youcef] had for each other. I think that she represented hope for him \u2014 she really is the leader of that relationship; she\u2019s his cheerleader. I\u2019m a deep romantic at heart, and I think he just absolutely loved her. But I also think she\u2019s a survivalist.\u201d<\/p>\n The ambiguity of their romance \u2014 and the movie\u2019s refusal to resolve itself tidily \u2014 is emblematic of a bygone age of risk-taking American cinema, one that Plaza and Rossi clearly adore, considering how admiringly they discuss John Cassavetes and the New Hollywood era. Appropriately for a film featuring characters fighting to find something lasting in a world that seems to have little room for them, the actors who brought Emily and Youcef to life want to make a mark in an industry that\u2019s systematically squeezing out smart, low-budget movies like theirs.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, that\u2019s what I love about [\u2018Emily the Criminal\u2019]: It feels old-school,\u201d Plaza says. \u201cNot to brag, but I was just talking to Kevin Bacon. I\u2019m not going to put words in his mouth, but he loved the movie, and we were nerding out about it. He was saying, \u2018Yeah, it reminds me of movies from the \u201870s and how movies used to feel.\u2019 You\u2019re dropped into a really interesting character\u2019s world and you just spend some time with them. Movies used to be like that \u2014 there\u2019s not a lot of original stories like that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n When Aubrey Plaza read the script for \u201cEmily the Criminal,\u201d an electric Los Angeles-set thriller about a young woman with a criminal record, a mountain of student debt and few job prospects, she knew she wanted to take on the role \u2014 in large part because it was something different, something she hadn\u2019t tackled before. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39308"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/ca-times.brightspotcdn.com\/dims4\/default\/0016257\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/2023x993+0+0\/resize\/320x157!\/format\/webp\/quality\/80\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F87%2F86%2F59a298294e7e8bb9eadfca092d63%2Femily-the-criminal-aubrey-plaza-and-theo-rossi-in-emily-the-criminal-courtesy-of-roadside-attractions-and-vertical-entertainment-rgb.png)
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