Aubrey Plaza Met Donald Trump as Noddy the Elf | Letterman

thank you very much for being here it says here you just flew in today is that right you just got in today yes was it going to storm and stuff you couldn't get in earlier uh yeah actually i think so the flights were kind of all messed up so i was i actually came right from work i did a scene where i stole a car and then i got in another car and then i went to the airport and then i had a connecting flight in minneapolis and then i got here just in time and i i haven't slept oh i'm sorry it's it's virtually impossible to sleep on an airplane isn't it yeah it is i actually usually just knock myself out but um you have to time that out if if you're on a longer flight you can like take a pill or something but i was but they were um it was like three or three two three hour flights so i was like licking my xanax and just trying to get enough uh does that does that help if you just lick this i don't know actually i feel like i'm in a dream state so well if you're not sleeping and then traveling and everything it's just awful i feel i feel bad normal to me oh it's this is the most normal thing i could be doing where are you from originally i'm from wilmington delaware wilmington delaware i don't i don't know many people from delaware thank you yeah [Applause] what is wilmington like nice town yeah it's great it's um it's a place to be somebody that's the town motto it um really it is it actually says that on on a wooden sign when you enter the town and when when you were a child is is that where you uh realize oh i want to be in uh show business or comedy or tv or something is that where you got the bugs yeah yeah definitely um family encouraged it family uh yeah yeah i think they encouraged it yeah i did a lot of i was a weird kid i did a lot of weird uh things i was always dressing up in costumes and um running around the woods and um you lived in the woods in wilmington kind of well one of my houses uh backed up to the woods to a cemetery actually um so i did a lot of things in there uh i actually don't know what i'm talking about right now but just kind of making stuff up yeah um no no no i appreciate that no i uh all right but did you have did you have early show business experiences um yeah i did like you know community theater for sure stuff like that what kind of what kind of productions plays i did i was um i was a duck no i was a chicken in a in the ugly duckling and um wow it's a tough gig i know right the chicken in the ugly duckling that doesn't go anywhere but now i'm here so let me ask you about this duck yeah exactly this is uh i think later in your uh nascent career this is a 2007. that's right here in new york city that's you uh donald trump and i think donald trump's uh uh son young son there that is me yeah and what what is it what's the story behind this photo here well um that actually um had nothing to do with me trying to be an actor or anything that was just me trying to make money to eat and i found a job on craigslist um to be a mascot to play that character which is actually a british i think uh children's book character named noddy that's knotty the elf is what it is that's right nadi the elf naughty the elf i actually have never read any of those books i don't know anything about that character but i did dress up as naughty the elf do you remember what the the gig paid how much did you make for that i believe it was like seven dollars an hour and um and the objective was to have your photo taken with donald trump that night it was was that easy no um a lot of times it was just to walk around and try to get people to be interested in me as that character but um that night they they really wanted me to get a photo op with donald trump and um he he was very popular so i was kind of like and i was in the costume and it's really sweaty and really hard to maneuver yourself so i was the whole time they were just really pressuring me like just get in there get in there with him and uh he wanted no part of it no i mean he wasn't being you know mean or anything but he was busy he is i mean in all fairness he's very camera shy yes but yeah so i had to be really aggressive and um but also pull it off like i'm like a cool little elf so i was like kind of bumping into him and then eventually he just said all right one picture and then i got in there and i was like thanks man i want to tell you something you did a great job you did a great job now here's the other thing and i hope you don't mind talking about this at 20 you had kind of a medical thing happen in your life at 20. yes um that's right i had a stroke when i was 20. that doesn't happen usually at 20 does it no it was kind of a freak thing um do you have a history of it in your family no i don't it's i really the doctors actually a lot of them have different theories on why it happens for example what what's the theory that you have embraced um oh i haven't well i haven't really embraced any single one of them more than the other some of them say it was hormonal like um maybe related to the birth control pill some of them say it was migraine related when i was a kid i i never really had any symptoms or any kind of weird signs either do you have migraines did you have migraines then yeah when i was a kid i had migraines so they thought i had a brain tumor once but i didn't um i had a weird personality and um i was weird but but nothing physical that wouldn't in and of itself that wouldn't trigger a stroke no um i don't think so well but you're fine now right yeah it was in 2004 it was really a crazy it was the scariest thing that's ever happened absolutely do you remember the symptoms of it i actually was living in new york at the time i took a train out to meet my friends in astoria and uh in mids i went into their apartment in mid-sentence um the right side of my body stopped working and i like looked down at my arm and i was like whose arm is that it's not connected to my body um and i and i i kind of blacked out and then i wasn't able to talk i had expressive aphasia um for the next couple days and um when the paramedics came like i couldn't talk to anyone it was really a crazy thing um and my friends actually thought i was kidding because i was always doing like weird jokes and they were like cut it out and i was like you know it was really weird and the paramedics thought i was on drugs because i was so young they they just weren't thinking strokes and and inside of of your head you're panicked stricken yeah i was like going through my the rest of my life thinking like well i won't be able to talk anymore so now what um and uh and but i was also just trying to communicate with people like and the weirdest things were coming out i could say some words like um when i was in the hospital like they kept asking me how old i was and my older much older boyfriend at the time uh was there with me kind of fielding these questions from the doctors and every time they asked me how old i was i would go 16 which was the only number i could say i don't know why um and uh and he would go she's not 16 she's 20. and there we go how old are you and yeah how long what was there it must have been some rehabilitation for you um yeah well i eventually talked spoke talked again i'm talking how where how long did it take to regain speech and was there therapy involved there was well like three days after it happened i started talking i remember in the middle of the night i just in the hospital bed i just said aubry plaza and i said my name and then i said that's a good start and then um and then uh yeah so then i was fine really i went back to school and um and they they registered me as a disabled student which was weird because i didn't have any like residual things wrong with me but i did have a learning specialist um that they made me meet with once a week who uh was also a drag queen so um we talked about that mostly now did this really happen or this part of the stroke i don't know i'm sure not sure if i'm having one now no no just uh but uh uh uh i find this fascinating are you on medication some sort of uh oh i'm on oh no not for sure but you're feeling fine your health is just fine i feel great dave okay good [Music]

Channel: Letterman

Views: 2,107,993

Keywords: letterman, david letterman, dave letterman, interview, letterman interview, letterman official, letterman late show, letterman late night, aubrey plaza interview, aubrey plaza met donald trump, aubrey plaza letterman interview, aubrey plaza letterman 2011 interview, aubrey plaza as noddy elf, aubrey plaza noddy elf, noddy elf, aubrey plaza parks and rec, aubrey plaza parks and recreation, aubrey plaza stroke, aubrey plaza actress, actress, aubrey plaza, aubrey plaza funny

Id: VUCHmGOE9mo

Length: 9min 23sec (563 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 01 2022