Aubrey Plaza

When Aubrey Plaza was twenty, she had a stroke. She was a film student at New York University, and the stroke left her temporarily unable to speak; she has described lying in a hospital bed trying to find words that would not come. She recovered fully, and within a few years she had built a career on a voice that became instantly recognizable: flat, dry and deadpan, delivering every line as if she could not care less.

She was born on June 26, 1984, in Wilmington, Delaware. Her birth time has never been published, which leaves her Ascendant out of reach, but her planets reveal a great deal. Cancer holds her Sun, and Mercury and Venus keep it company there. Cancer is the most emotionally sensitive sign of the zodiac, tender, protective and deeply attached to home and family. That may seem a strange fit for a comic famous for appearing not to feel anything, but Cancer is also the crab, which hides a soft interior under a hard shell, and Plaza's deadpan has always been a kind of armor around obvious warmth.

Mars and Saturn sit together in Scorpio. Scorpio is intense, dark and drawn to the forbidden, and Mars and Saturn there describe a sharp, controlled, slightly dangerous energy. Plaza's comedy often has an edge of menace, and she has gravitated toward dark material, from the unsettling social media stalker of Ingrid Goes West to the manipulative Harper in the second season of The White Lotus, which earned her an Emmy nomination.

She grew up in a Catholic family in Wilmington, attended an all-girls Catholic school and was a page and intern at NBC, including at Saturday Night Live, while studying film. She performed improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York.

Her breakthrough came in 2009 as April Ludgate, the bored, sardonic intern on Parks and Recreation, a role written with her deadpan in mind. Over seven seasons April revealed a hidden sweetness, especially in her romance with Chris Pratt's character, Andy, and fans saw the Cancer heart under the Scorpio shell.

Jupiter, retrograde in Capricorn, suggests success that comes through dry, understated wit rather than broad comedy. Uranus and Neptune, in Sagittarius, add a taste for the strange and surreal. Plaza has taken unusual roles in the series Legion, the independent film Black Bear and Marvel's Agatha All Along, in which she played a personification of Death.

Pluto, retrograde in the final degree of Libra, describes transformation through partnership. In January 2025 her husband, the filmmaker Jeff Baena, with whom she had worked on several films, died by suicide, and Plaza stepped back from public life for a time to grieve.

The Cancer planets gave her the heart; the Scorpio Mars and Saturn gave her the deadpan armor that protects it.

Help is available for anyone in the United States experiencing suicidal thoughts, or worried about someone who is: call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.