Child’s Play: Aubrey Plaza on Tech, Animatronics and Chucky Creepiness [Exclusive Interview]

Child’s Play is certainly not your father’s Chucky movie.

Child’s Play is the reboot or redux of the 1988 version that became a cult classic with horror aficionados. The serial killer is gone. The tiny actor in a Chucky costume is gone. Brad Dourif, who voiced Chucky over many years, is not in this movie.

This new version of Child’s Play is updated for the millennial generation with the use of social media, videos, smart homes devices and still with the toy craze shoppers.

Child’s Play film has Mark Hamill voicing the iconic character with Aubrey Plaza, Gabriel Bateman and Brian Tyree Henry as Chucky’s adversaries. The film is directed by Lars Klevberg (Polaroid) and written by Tyler Burton Smith (Quantum Break).

LRM Online had a chance to speak with Aubrey Plaza over the phone on her international press tour of Child’s Play. We spoke about being in the set and working with the different dolls. She also talked about the discovery that Mark Hamill is the voice and creating an authentic relationship as mother-son with Gabriel Bateman.

Child’s Play is playing in theaters nationwide this Friday, June 21, with previews Thursday night.

Read our complete interview below with Aubrey Plaza for Child’s Play.

LRM: This is my sixth interview with you and this will be my first that where I don’t get to see your facial expressions. I’m so sad.

Aubrey Plaza: Thank God. I’m so happy. [Laughs]

LRM: Let’s start with the easy question. Why did you want to do a remake of a Chucky movie with Child’s Play?

Aubrey Plaza: Well, I thought it was a very clever reimagining of the character of Chucky. I normally wouldn’t support doing a remake of a movie that I think is already good. It was a really fun way to bring Chucky back to the theater. The role of Karen was a really different part that I haven’t played before. I thought that would be a good challenge for me.

LRM: I found you did well with a playing Karen too. We’re talking about a millennial mom. I figured you’re a little bit too young to play mom, but you probably disagree, right? [Laughs]

Aubrey Plaza: You can think whatever you want, okay? I’m 34. So I’m not too young. I think like people associate me with characters that are probably like 20 or something. They forget that I’m actually older than that. The age difference than the movie was the age difference of me and my mom had real life. My mom was really young when she had me. I felt like I think I can pull this off.

LRM: How was it interacting with Gabriel Bateman as your son, Andy?

Aubrey Plaza: Gabriel was awesome. He is such a good actor. He had already been in a bunch of horror movie. No, he was like an old pro by the time he got to our set. I was very focused on becoming friends with him, because I wanted our relationship to feel like there was some history there. We were really comfortable with each other. I made it a point to try to hang out with him outside of work. We did a lot of things together on the weekends. We got to be friends. While we’re on set, it was really easy. I felt like we already had kind of a comfortable dynamic.

LRM: The director, Lars Klevberg, used real animatronics for the Chucky dolls. How was interacting with those different dolls? What was that experience like?

Aubrey Plaza: It was pretty creepy, Those dolls, if you see them, they’re creepy. Being surrounded by those dolls all day was very weird. There were nine of them. They all had different functions. Thankfully, I didn’t have to interact with the dolls that much, as much as Andy did it. The end of the day, it’s still weird looking little doll. We got used to it.

LRM: Who’s voiced Chucky on the set? Obviously, Mark Hamill’s voice was put in afterwards. Am I correct?

Aubrey Plaza: We didn’t know it was going to be Mark Hamill. We knew someone was going to do the voice, but we didn’t know who? On the day, it was the lead puppeteer who did the voice. He would be hooked up to the doll. He’d be like laying on the ground next to the doll. He would be doing some kind of creepy voice. [Laughs] We definitely have something to work off of..

LRM: I thought you could have done the voice. You would have been awesome.

Aubrey Plaza: Hey, I’ll take that as a compliment.

LRM: [Laughs] I’ve seen the movie, but one of the photos that the studio released was with you bound and gagged. Talk about that scene without revealing too much.

Aubrey Plaza: That scene was very intense. It was the climax of the movie. It was the final face-off. We actually shot that first. Not only it very intense scene, it was my first day on set. I was immediately gagged and tied up. There was blood all over me. I went from zero to a million and the intensity scale. So the intensity was very high in that scene. Of course, Andy is in that scene too, and he’s trying to save me. There’s a lot going on.

LRM: Now I remembered talking to you about your dislike of social media with Ingrid Goes West. Now doing this film here, I get a sense that you probably have a dislike of technology like Alexa, Siri and Google. Talk about more about that.

Aubrey Plaza: Yeah, I’m very wary of all the technologies, especially all of these smart devices. I feel like we are naive in thinking that they won’t turn on us at some point. We’re so reliant on our phones and on social media. This technology is changing the way we think. I think it’s scary. It’s taking away from humans just connecting with each other honestly.

LRM: But, you still have these smart devices yourself in your life, right?

Aubrey Plaza: Yeah, I do. But, I hate them. I want throw them out the window. Someday, I’m going to get rid of them. It’s hard. It’s really hard with work too. Now when you’re an actor, people expect you to be on social media. They expect you to be participating on all of these things. Sometimes I feel like I can’t stop, because it’s part of my career now. I don’t really like, but that’s just how it is.

LRM: Absolutely. I also followed your career very closely out throughout the years where you did a lot of a lighthearted comedy. Now you’re starting to get into more darker characters in darker movies. Could you talk about that?

Aubrey Plaza: I think when I first started acting in bigger projects, they were all comedy-related. I’ve always wanted to be in dramas. Most people associate me with Parks and Recreation. It just takes a lot time to show people that you can do different things. I feel like I worked very hard in the past couple of years to try and make different choices and play different characters so that no one puts me in a box. That would be my fears. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing over and over again.

LRM: Years ago you voiced a Grumpy Cat in the animated cartoon. Grumpy Cat, she died just recently. Could you talk about her?

Aubrey Plaza: Yeah, I’m very upset about that. I was really shocked that she died, because she wasn’t that old. I was really sad. I had a lot of plans for her and I, um. In fact, I had just recently finished a screenplay of a feature film that was going to star me and Grump Cat. I had been working on it all year. I wanted to work with Grumpy again. Now she’s watching over us. We have to move on. I’ll never forget her.

LRM: Well, thank you very much for speaking with me again. Hopefully, we’ll get to talk to you again soon.

Aubrey Plaza: Yeah, thank you.

Child’s Play is playing in theaters nationwide this Friday, June 21, with previews Thursday night.

Source: LRM Online Exclusive

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