“White Lotus” star Aubrey Plaza is as quirky in real life as she is on-screen.
When the actress tied the knot with her longtime love, screenwriter Jeff Baena, during the Covid lockdown in 2021, the pair were both wearing tie-dye T-shirts, Page Six can reveal.
Plaza, 38, called up an officiant from 1hourmarriage.com in Alhambra, California, east of Los Angeles, and asked him to help mark her and Baena’s 10-year anniversary.
Officiant Will Young told Page Six he turned up to the backyard to find Plaza and Baena and just one other person present to take photos.
“During Covid we had to shut down for a few months,” Young told Page Six of his in-person operation. “Then when the county allowed us to issue marriage licenses again everyone wanted this service.
“I think Aubrey just found us on our website. She and her husband were both wearing tie-dye shirts. They seemed very happy, if a little nervous with each other,” Young added. “But that’s very typical.”
During an appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in December 2021, Plaza pondered whether the marriage was even legal. But Young — who also married “Baywatch” star David Hasselhoff and his third wife Hayley Roberts in a legal ceremony before their big wedding in 2018 — said: “Oh, it’s definitely legal!”
He also revealed he had no idea who Plaza even was until she mentioned his company to DeGeneres.
Plaza, who told DeGeneres her husband had became a big tie-dye fan during lockdown, also said she went across the street to get a spiritual blessing from her neighbor — who she called a real-life witch: “She went in her house, rummaged around. Came out with a rosemary wreath that she gave me. She literally cackled…
“I created a very quick love altar in our yard. Facts of our love, little stones, smoke, fire. Things of that nature.”
None of this kookiness will come as a surprise to fans of the actress, whose antics at the SAG Awards Sunday made headlines.
She was seen looking “annoyed” when co-star Jon Gries whispered something in her ear, then mouthing “Jesus Christ” as co-star F. Murray Abraham accepted the award.
Gries, who was telling Plaza to fix her revealing Michael Kors gown on stage, told Page Six that the reaction was just her “biting wit.”
Plaza found fame playing cynical assistant April Ludgate on the NBC hit sitcom “Parks and Recreation” from 2009-2015, who became a fan favorite for her blasé persona and deadpan delivery.
Plaza is pretty much the same in real life, according to one source from “Saturday Night Live,” which she hosted in January: “She is the same, but warmer — sarcastic and warm.
“She was awesome on the show. She’s friends with a lot of people here and everyone was rooting for her.”
Plaza was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to Bernadette, an Irish Catholic attorney, and David, a financial advisor from Puerto Rico.
“My two younger sisters are a lot more like April than me, whereas I was more like Lesley Knope,” she told The Guardian in October, referring to Amy Poehler’s striving and happy-go-lucky “Parks and Recreation” character. “My parents are very ambitious and they came from nothing. So I grew up watching them work really hard to get to where they are today, and as a child I had this hunger to make a name for myself.”
When Plaza was a 20-year-old student at New York University, she had a stroke while in an improv class.
She told NPR: “My two friends that were with me at the room at the time thought I was doing a bit with them. And they kept saying ‘Stop it,’ like they thought I was joking or something.”
The stroke, which left Plaza temporarily unable to speak. was caused by a clot in the left temporal lobe of her brain.
“I had expressive aphasia, where I could understand what’s happening, but I couldn’t talk or communicate. Like, you could say something and I would know what you meant but I couldn’t express it or even write it. That was the weirdest part,” she has said. “When they gave me a piece of paper and a pen I just kept writing lines instead of words. But at least I could walk.
“When it first happened to me I was paralyzed, but I was so young that my brain healed itself really fast. I was really lucky in that way.”
The actress worked as an NBC page after college — and donning a page blazer for old times’ sake when she hosted “SNL.”
Plaza went on to play Seth Rogen’s love interest in the 2009 movie “Funny People,” directed by Judd Apatow, and then appeared in director Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” before signing on for “Parks and Rec,” where the casting director called her “the weirdest girl I’ve ever met.”
Plaza remains close to Poehler, with whom she had a “date night” at the SAG Awards, where they also reunited with “Parks and Rec” alum Adam Scott.
But her fame’s gone to another level recently, thanks to season two of HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Plaza played Harper, a disaffected lawyer who agrees to go on a luxury Sicily vacation with her husband — who has recently become a millionaire — and his wealthy friends. The cast spent months filming and became friends, with Plaza especially now good friends with co-star Adam DiMarco, set sources said.
She was nominated for a Golden Globe and joined her co-stars onstage at the SAG Awards to accept the best ensemble award.
Plaza has also won raves for the Netflix movie “Emily The Criminal,” which she also produced, and is already getting great reviews for her role as a glam technology expert in Guy Ritchie’s new spy caper, “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” out Friday. The actress stars alongside Jason Statham and Hugh Grant and has inspired some critics to say she should be the new James Bond.
She does admit, however, that people confuse her shyness for weirdness, telling The Guardian: “Maybe it confuses people that I just don’t take things that seriously. You see actors all the time who take themselves so seriously and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, you’re talking about a movie.’ I try not to lose that spirit because it’s got me where I am today. Seriously, we’re all gonna die one day.”