Aubrey Plaza is making her “Saturday Night Live” hosting debut this weekend with musical guest Sam Smith, but it’s not the first time Plaza has been in the orbit of the long-running NBC sketch comedy series. Plaza auditioned for “SNL” back in the day and failed to get the job because she tried out with two very bizarre original characters, which isn’t too surprising for her.
“I didn’t make it to the Lorne [Michaels] audition, the famous final audition, but I did a preliminary first-round showcase,” Plaza told Jimmy Fallon during a recent interview on “The Tonight Show.” “I remember one character I did was like a Puerto Rican news reporter that was always trying to make all of the news stories sexy, even if they were horrific news stories. I was just trying to like, sex up the news or something.”
Plaza’s second character was “a pill-popping housewife that had a show called ‘Celebri-Tails,’ where I would just name celebrities and name what kind of tail they would have if they had a tail. Like I would say, ‘Lindsay Lohan would have a bushy squirrel’s tail.’ Or, like, ‘Bill Clinton would have a polar bear’s nub.’”
Neither character was apparently good enough to advance Plaza to the Lorne Michael round of the “SNL” audition process. However, Plaza did end up becoming an “intern in the design department” on the show from 2004 to 2005.
“They loved me because I did not care about set design at all and they wanted an intern that had no interest in learning what they did,” Plaza said, adding that she spent her time “stalking” and “lurking in the shadows.” “I was just, like, creepy. Like, I was a creepy stalker. Now I’m gonna host it, so my master plan worked!”
Plaza has been awards season darling recently thanks to her performance in “The White Lotus,” which nabbed her nominations at the Golden Globe Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards as part of the ensemble cast. Her “SNL” episode airs live on Jan. 21.