Aubrey Plaza on why her new thriller “Emily the Criminal” felt like pulling off a scam

If Aubrey Plaza’s Hollywood career doesn’t work out, she might have a future in credit-card fraud.

Thanks to her new film Emily the Criminal (now in theaters), Plaza says she got really good with an embossing machine. “I know how to work that thing,” she tells EW, adding with her trademark deadpan wit, “so if my career doesn’t pan out, I know how to make a fake credit card, and I’ll carry that with me until the end.”

In the darkly comic crime feature from debuting writer-director John Patton Ford, Plaza plays Emily, a young woman loaded with student debt (but no degree to show for it), who is locked out of the job market due to a criminal record. Her life changes forever when she gets involved in a credit-card scam as a “dummy shopper,” buying goods with stolen credit cards supplied by charismatic middleman Youcef (Theo Rossi).

The indie, well-received out of Sundance earlier this year, was shot in just 20 days on a tiny budget, and the “down and dirty style,” as Plaza puts it, enabled her to do a lot of the stunts, driving, and fight scenes herself. She says the experience reminded her why she loves making movies. “The entire movie felt like we pulled off a scam,” she says. “All independent films in some ways feel like some kind of heist. Like, ‘Wow. I can’t believe we got away with that.'”

Ahead of Emily’s debut in theaters, EW spoke with Plaza about prepping to play a fraudster, her own bad job experiences, and how she channeled her character’s rage.