Aubrey Plaza has spoken about her grief for her husband Jeff Baena, comparing it to the recent horror film The Gorge.
Baena, a director known for independent films such as Life After Beth and The Little Hours, both of which starred Plaza, took his own life in January at the age of 47. He and Plaza had been in a relationship since 2011, marrying at a private ceremony at their home in 2021.
Now, Plaza has given her first major interview since his passing, appearing on the Good Hang podcast, presented by her former co-star on Parks And Recreation, Amy Poehler.
“Right in this very, very present moment, I feel happy to be with you,” Plaza told Poehler. “I’m here and I’m functioning and I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I’m okay, but it’s a daily struggle, obviously.”
She went on to cite Apple TV+’s 2025 sci-fi-horror film The Gorge, starring Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver, as an unlikely helpful analogy for her experience of grief.
Aubrey Plaza opens up about losing her husband this year on Amy Poehler’s ‘Good Hang’ podcast. pic.twitter.com/tKsQpCoN37
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 19, 2025
“In the movie, there’s like a cliff on one side and there’s a cliff on the other side, then there’s a gorge in between and it’s filled with all these like monster people that are trying to get them,” Plaza explained.
“I swear when I watched it, I was like that feels like what my grief is like … or what grief could be like.”
“At all times there’s like a giant ocean of awfulness, that’s like right there and I can see it. Sometimes I just want to dive into it, and just like be in it. Then sometimes I just look at it, and sometimes I try to get away from it. But, it’s always there, and the monster people are trying to get me like Miles Teller.”
In Match, a medical examiner’s report confirmed that Plaza and Baena had separated four months before he died. A month later, he made “concerning remarks” to Plaza that led to her asking a friend to perform a welfare check on him.
Plaza deleted her Instagram account after Baena’s death, and made her first public appearance after it at SNL50 in February, introducing Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard. She was last seen on screen in Marvel’s Agatha All Along.
