Aubrey Plaza has had it with people asking if she plays Chucky in 'Child's Play'
Once more for the people in the back: Aubrey Plaza is the mom in Child's Play — not the killer doll.
Over 30 years since it first hit theaters, the Child's Play franchise has returned to the big screen with a reimagining which has Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry, and Gabriel Bateman filling some of its most iconic roles.
But what part Plaza, best known for portraying the vaguely threatening April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation, plays in the reboot has, according to her, caused confusion for some.
"Oh, are you playing Chucky?"
"When most people find out that I'm in Child's Play, they're like, 'Oh, are you playing Chucky?'" Plaza tells Mashable.
"And I'm like, 'No, asshole. I'm playing the mom.'"
Appearing as Karen Barclay, a single mother who unknowingly gifts her young son Andy (Bateman) a state-of-the-art sociopathic murderer known as Chucky, Plaza spends the majority of the film screaming, running, and otherwise fighting for her life. In the trailer, she appears bloodied and hanging from the neck while a nearby Chucky, voiced by Mark Hamill, plots her presumably gruesome demise.
For longtime fans of Plaza, it's a strange thing to see her and her captivating confidence anywhere but the driver's seat. But for Plaza, that was part of the appeal.
"No, asshole. I'm playing the mom."
"That's part of the reason I did it, because I thought, 'Wow, I bet no one would see this coming,'" she recalls, noting that Child's Play was the first horror film she agreed to do despite being offered several in the past.
"I don't really think about genre [or audience expectations] when I'm shooting. It's more about committing to the character."
First played by Catherine Hicks in 1988, Karen is a well-known horror character whose maternal instincts formed the bedrock of the franchise's multi-million dollar success, and whose critical narrative role is fitting of a star as big as Plaza.
But Child's Play marks the first time Plaza has played a mom on-screen — a casting choice Plaza says continues to surprise moviegoers, in part due to her age.
"I just thought the idea of playing a young, single mom was interesting," Plaza says, emphasizing her personal connection to the character. "My mom was really young when she had me, so that dynamic felt very familiar."
But even with her characteristically deadpan sense of humor and personal connection infused into the character, Plaza says she continues to strike some as an unusual casting choice for "the mom."
Luckily, that makes for a perfectly complex fit for an already perfectly complex character.
"It's already challenging enough to play a single mom, who is trying to do the best she can with her son," Plaza notes.
"Then, when you add the element of a doll that is murdering people, that's an acting challenge where I said, 'Oh yeah, I will take that on.' The stakes are just so high, and you just don't find that with a lot of the dramas these days."
