How to Throw a Party Like Aubrey Plaza

Aubrey Plaza doesn’t care if you keep your shoes on inside, nor is there any kind of required dress code for entry. The only real rule you have to follow when attending a party at the actor’s Spanish-style home in Los Feliz, California, is to never show up on time. And god forbid you’re early. “When I hear the doorbell ring exactly on the dot it’s like… Oh my god,” she says, a look of horror flashing across her face. “What are you doing here?”

Dan Stevens, her co-star in the FX series Legion, is always prompt, Plaza says, with an eye roll. It’s a quality that the host has begrudgingly come to deal with for the many game nights that turn into late nights that she and her husband, the director Jeff Baena, throw throughout the week. Often spontaneous, these get-togethers are typically announced with a meme-y graphic invite designed by Baena, and end up wildly varying in guest count—from intimately-sized Balderdash sessions to dance parties soundtracked by yacht rock and Swedish rap music. (The Hollywood couple typically keeps a “Bowie household,” admits Plaza).

No matter the playlist, however, the one thing that makes all their romps successful is their bar. “We usually hold our parties on the later side,” says Plaza, “People know to eat before they come, because we don’t go crazy with the food—we’re all about the cocktails.” The actor calls her drink of choice a MargaRight. It’s the classic version of the sour cocktail—composed of tequila, fresh lime juice, and Cointreau, whom she recently partnered with—which is then shaken and chilled before being served. When Plaza plays bartender at these functions (which she often does) she makes her margs per serving rather than batch punches. “The last one I made got too witchy for people,” she says of a Halloween affair that took a sideways turn.

Another gathering that got away from The White Lotus star was one she held a few years ago for the Swedish film Border. “I loved the movie so much, even though I had nothing to do with it,” recalls Plaza, who asked the indie production’s distribution company, Neon, if she could host a screening in Los Angeles to support it. Nearly a hundred of the star’s close friends and family turned up to the private theater that she rented out to watch the anticipated film. The only problem? The actual copy of the movie was nowhere to be found. “It turned out to be a disaster,” says Plaza, still reeling from the chaos. Her solution was to distract the crowd with plenty of drinks and an impromptu performance by Fred Armisen and Nick Kroll, who happened to be attending.

Hopefully, Plaza will have better luck when she celebrates Swedish cinema again later this month. Every year, she and her husband host a double-Cancer rager at their home (their birthdays are two days apart)—but this June, they’re attending the Bergman Week film festival on the Baltic island of Fårö. As far as her next hosting endeavor, though, the actress already has a plan in motion. “We got married a couple of years ago during the pandemic, but we never had a proper celebration,” says Plaza, whose middle sister, Natalie, just also tied the knot. “We’ve been scheming to throw a mega party that celebrates both of our weddings.”

This event, when it finally happens, will take place in the sisters’ native Delaware—but will look nothing like the parties they celebrated growing up. “Our dream is to have it on a creepy, old estate like DuPont [now known as the NYIT de Seversky Mansion] with Civil War reenactors and oddities in every room,” says Plaza. “It would be almost like Great Gatsby meets Clue, and there would be drag queens. We love drag queens. There would be drag queens, and MargaRights.” Cheers to that.

Source: Vogue