Aubrey Plaza Opens Up About Having A Stroke At Age 20

Aubrey Plaza is sharing harrowing new details about the experience of having a stroke at just 20 years old.

Appearing on “The Howard Stern Show” Wednesday, Plaza said she was briefly paralyzed and left unable to speak after the stroke, which took place when she was still a student at New York University.

“It happened mid-sentence,” the “Parks and Recreation” and “White Lotus” actor explained. “I took the train to Astoria [in Queens, New York] to have lunch with my friends. I walked into their apartment … I hadn’t even taken my jacket off and in mid-sentence, it just happened. That’s when I was paralyzed.”

Noting that she was able to regain some of her motor skills after about a minute, she added, “The freakiest thing was that I forgot how to talk … it was terrifying. I thought I’d never speak again.”

Plaza, a Delaware native, has acknowledged having a stroke in the past. In a 2017 interview with NPR’s “Fresh Air,” the actor recalled how paramedics initially thought she was dehydrated or had been using drugs given her young age. She also attributed the stroke to her use of a birth control pill which she no longer takes.

Watch a clip of Aubrey Plaza’s “Howard Stern Show” interview below.

And though she underwent cognitive therapy to regain her ability to speak and write, she said the experience continues to impact her approach to both her career and her private life.

“I always am aware of how precious life is, and I try to remember that every day,” she said. “I tend to see the bigger picture or try to see the bigger picture and try not to take things so seriously and try not to get hung up on the small things … I do have an overall feeling of life is short. And I might as well just do as much as I can. Maybe it’s why I’m so busy.”

Plaza returns to the big screen this month in two new films: “My Old Ass,” which opens Friday, and “Megalopolis,” out Sept. 27.

Elsewhere in her chat with Stern, Plaza said she was “surprised” at being asked to audition for “Megalopolis,” which is directed by five-time Oscar winner Francis Ford Coppola.

“I thought, ‘How am I on his radar?’ And then I never thought I would actually get that part,” she noted. “I was like, ‘Well, I’ll do the meeting, of course,’ but I didn’t think I was going to get the part, and I was actually shocked when I got it.”