Aubrey Plaza Goes Over the Edge in New Saturday Night Live Promo

Actor Aubrey Plaza has been waiting years for the opportunity to host Saturday Night Live, and now that the time has come for her chance in the spotlight this weekend, she’s pulling out her best impressions, no matter how bizarre they might be. In a new promo for the upcoming episode, Plaza shows off these unconventional impressions for cast member Chloe Fineman, which include Marcia Gay Harden from Pollock and Annette Bening from American Beauty, before things between the performers get a bit intimate. Check out the promo for this week’s Saturday Night Live below, which features musical guest Sam Smith, before the episode premieres Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET.

Plaza is no stranger to comedy, with her breakout roles coming in Funny People and Parks and Recreation, with more recent projects seeing her explore other opportunities, such as Emily the Criminal and The White Lotus. Even if she’s been expanding outside the comedy world in recent years, Plaza recently recalled just how much history she has with SNL.

While appearing on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Plaza reflected on serving as an intern in the set design department nearly 20 years ago. “I did not care about set design at all, and they wanted an intern that had no interest in learning what they did,” Plaza admitted. Likely due to her disinterest in set design, Plaza noted that her attempts to absorb what she could were “just, like, creepy. Like, I was a creepy stalker. Now I’m gonna host it, so my master plan worked.”

The actor was ultimately able to score the opportunity to audition for the series, though the effort wasn’t entirely a success.

“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.” She noted that another character she created was a “pill-popping housewife” who hosted a TV show called “Celebri-tails.” Her character would speculate about the types of tails that various celebrities would have.

Between viewers initially connecting with her comedic projects and the more recent embrace of dramatic and thrilling projects, fans are surely looking forward to seeing Plaza fully return to her comedic roots on this week’s episode of the sketch-comedy series.

Check out Plaza on Saturday Night Live this Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET.

Are you looking forward to seeing Plaza host the show? Let us know in the comments!