‘I Just Like Her.’ Ethan Coen and Aubrey Plaza Keep Collaborating in ‘Let’s Love!’

Letting loose wasn’t the only invitation Let’s Love! offered Plaza. During the first week of rehearsals, Coen pulled her aside and asked if she played any instruments. Plaza admitted that she’d played the saxophone since childhood, though she hadn’t picked it up recently. “He was like, ‘Oh, that’s great. ‘Cause we’re adding a musical number,’” remembers Plaza. “I was like, ‘Oh God, I didn’t sign up for that.’”

But Plaza rallied, and her fourth-grade saxophone now makes a cameo during the play’s final scene. “I actually need to get it cleaned,” she says. “It’s from, like, 1993. It’s old as fuck. I literally dusted it off.”

Plaza, who hails from Wilmington, Delaware, first moved to New York to attend NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in the early aughts. After many years living in Los Angeles, she’s glad to be back “home,” and rediscovering the city’s eccentricities. “New York is tricky because it’s one of those cities where, if things are going great for you, all of a sudden it becomes this magical place…Like, ‘Ooh, I’m in a Nora Ephron rom-com, strolling down the street and what a lovely city.’” Conversely, if things are going badly, “You start to see the rats running around and the garbage piling up and the shit everywhere. And you’re like, ‘What the fuck is wrong with this city?’”

For the time being, though, Plaza is content to stay put. Her family is mostly in Philadelphia and Delaware, and she likes being a mere train ride away. She and Coen also have another project tentatively in the works, one that again involves Qualley and Cooke. Coen says Plaza’s talent is only part of the draw. “I just like her. I mean, your bias is just to work with people you like hanging out with.”