Plaza has always been private about her personal life, but when it comes to the confusion over where her characters end and she begins, she has credited her “defense mechanisms” coming into play for her oft-sardonic persona.
“Celebrity and fame and all that stuff is scary to me,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2021. “My reaction is to find the funny in it, even if I come out looking weird.”
Consider when she told Howard Stern in September 2024, “I’m really good at manipulating my feelings, that’s what I get paid to do.” Asked if that was a peril of dating actors, not knowing how they really felt, she deadpanned, “Yeah, I would stay away.”
Asked if she was married to a fellow actor, Plaza said, “No, I’m married to a writer-director.” Asked if that was probably better for her, she replied, “Mmmhmm.”
As it turned out, she and Baena had separated around this time. He died by suicide less than four months later, on Jan. 3, 2025, the medical examiner’s report noting that Plaza had moved from Los Angeles to New York the previous September.
