For Aubrey Plaza, grief is sort of a gorge.
On Tuesday’s episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hold podcast, the actress opened up about how she’s been dealing with the grief of the demise of her husband, Jeff Baena, earlier this yr. Baena died by suicide on Jan. 3. He was 47 years previous.
To assist contextualize her grief, Plaza referenced the 2025 sci-fi romance movie The Gorge, which stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Pleasure as two elite operatives who’re tasked with defending the world from a mysterious evil that lies inside a deep gorge.
“Within the film, there’s like a cliff on one aspect, and there’s a cliff on the opposite aspect, after which this gorge in between, and it’s crammed with all these monster folks which can be attempting to get them. I swear, once I watched it, I used to be like, ‘That seems like what my grief is like … or what grief may very well be like,’” she mentioned.
The Honey, Don’t! actress continued: “Always, there’s like an enormous ocean of simply awfulness that’s proper there, and I can see it. And typically, I simply need to simply dive into it, and simply … be in it. After which typically, I simply take a look at it. After which typically, I attempt to get away from it. However it’s all the time there.”
Poehler initially broached the topic of Baena’s demise by asking Plaza how she’s been coping with the tragedy.
“You had this horrible, horrible, tragic yr,” Poehler, who starred alongside Plaza on Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015, mentioned. “You misplaced your husband. You’ve been coping with that, and also you’ve been on the lookout for all alternative ways during which to really feel and discover help. I believe, on behalf of all of the individuals who really feel like they know you, and the individuals who do know you, how are you feeling at the moment?”
Plaza mentioned that “on this current second,” she feels comfortable to be with Poehler and that she’s functioning total.
“I really feel actually grateful to be shifting by way of the world. I believe I’m OK, however you realize, it’s like a each day battle, clearly,” she mentioned.
Jeff Baena and Aubrey Plaza in 2016. (David Crotty/Patrick McMullan through Getty Pictures)
Plaza’s candor has resonated with followers who’ve skilled their very own losses. Many have taken to social media platforms like TikTok and X, or commented on the YouTube video of the interview itself to thank Plaza for her honesty.
“The gorgeous vulnerability that Aubrey exhibits initially of this podcast is unbelievable. At a time when everybody posts solely the highlights of their life, it’s so weak to even simply present up,” one fan commented on the YouTube video. One other fan added: “This was a lovely, variety and loving interview. Discussions of grief actually assist me in mine; I’m sending a lot love and therapeutic to Aubrey and anybody else going through the Grief Gorge.”
Plaza started courting Baena, a author and director with whom she had usually collaborated, in 2011. Followers discovered that the pair had secretly married when the actress referred to him as her “darling husband” in an Instagram put up in Might 2021.
The Ingrid Goes West star beforehand spoke concerning the ups and downs of working together with your companion.
“My companion’s a filmmaker, and we’ve made motion pictures collectively,” Plaza mentioned throughout a 2020 episode of HFPA In Dialog. “We’ve had actually good experiences and actually dangerous experiences, and I believe I discovered going by way of these issues that in the end, you realize, motion pictures come and go. Films — it’s what our lives are constructed off of. However while you’re about to die, you don’t take into consideration the films. You consider the folks in your life and your relationships. I believe that’s what most individuals take into consideration earlier than they die.”
