“There's like a giant ocean of awfulness”: Aubrey Plaza explains what grief feels like for her after husband Jeff Baena’s death

Actress Aubrey Plaza was a recent guest on the Good Hang with Amy Poehler podcast. Although their conversation cut across a variety of topics, Plaza touched on how she dealt with her husband Jeff Baena’s death. Jeff died in January 2025.

When asked how she was feeling on the day they shot the episode, Plaza said she was happy to be with Poehler. She said, despite her loss, she was functioning and felt grateful to carry herself with the flow of life. Plaza compared her grief to a gorge as she said:

“At all times, there's like a giant like ocean of just awfulness that's like right there and I can like see it and like sometimes I just want to like just dive into it and just like be in it and then sometimes I just like look at it and then sometimes I'm like I just try to get away from it but it's always there.”

The conversation rolled on, and then Amy Poehler asked her what kind of child she was. Aubrey Plaza said she was a shy person before she turned seven. She said she was lanky, freakish, and had thin hair. Although she said she was an observer and had great imagination skills.

Plaza acted in the 2009 sitcom, Parks and Recreation, of which Poehler was a part, and she remembered an incident while they were shooting. She was writing a long text to someone who was bothering her. Aubrey Plaza took her phone, typed just “no,” and sent it instead.

Aubrey Plaza talks about changing apartments and interning with SNL

Aubrey Plaza talked about moving to New York, where her parents dropped her off at her dorm on Third Avenue. She later left the dorms earlier than allowed because of a mice menace. She remembered lying on the top bunk, staying quiet while reading a book as the mice took over. The actress joked:

“I literally was just like reading for like I don't know maybe 20 minutes or something and all the sudden there was a Thanksgiving Day parade of mice. They were like having trumpets. They were like and they all just started parading back and forth like selling things and it was like a flea market. They came out and they were like it was insane.”

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Aubrey Plaza said she moved out of the house and went to a different accommodation with theater girls. Poehler mentioned that Plaza also worked as an intern on SNL. When asked how she got the job, she said she sent her resume. She said she got a call from the design department and was asked to come for an interview.

When she went to the venue, Aubrey Plaza said she saw Ben Affleck. During the interview, Plaza was asked if she could join immediately, to which she agreed. She explained that the SNL sets had to be built quickly, between Wednesday and Saturday, after the sketches were chosen. She stayed up late helping, searched through files for old set designs, and also took photos to keep track of details.

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