Aubrey Plaza & Director John Patton Ford Talk Emily The Criminal (The FH Interview)

Cinema's criminal underbelly is a world typically populated by men. However, writer/director John Patton Ford's Emily the Criminal challenges this trope, focusing on a young girl backed into crime as she faces looming student loan debts. What's most remarkable about this perspective is Ford's characterisation; Emily isn't a particularly likeable or redeemable character. Ford doesn't pander to his audience in an attempt to deliver a girl boss going against the system; he delivers a richly complex character with a dark disposition. The result is Emily the Criminal, a spiralling thriller with a unique perspective starring Aubrey Plaza and Theo Rossi. Filmhounds sits down with John and Aubrey during the 2022 BFI London Film Festival to discuss all things Emily and the collaborative process of making her a criminal. 

“Finding the story was a long process,” says John Patton Ford, “I researched credit card fraud, specifically an organised crime group within LA. I actually sort of lived it in a way. I didn't commit credit card fraud, but I did go to film school and was in a lot of debt afterwards, experiencing a lot of dark and desperate times where I didn't have a lot of hope. So, I really understood how this character felt.” Ford's character is Emily, who we meet amid a tumultuous job interview. Despite her qualifications, Emily is knocked back from obtaining a well-paying job due to a felony conviction on her record. To make ends meet, Emily works long hours at a low-paying catering company until a co-worker introduces her to a ‘dummy shopping' service, which promises her $200 for one hour of work. 

Emily is introduced to a credit card fraud ring led by Youcef (Theo Rossi), who takes a shine to her. After successfully completing one job, Emily is offered another, bigger job for a considerable sum of money. Once she understands the stakes, Youcef teaches Emily how to make her own fake credit cards, and Emily plunges into the tempestuous lifestyle of a criminal.

At the forefront of the film is Aubrey Plaza, whose every role brings her one step closer to complete world domination. Plaza came up in the comedy world, using her natural sarcastic wit to embody April Ludgate on Parks and Recreation. However, over recent years, in films such as Black Bear and Ingrid Goes West, Plaza has gravitated towards darker, more intricate characters. “I felt like I related to her, and I felt like I knew her. So there was an opportunity for me to show a different side of myself here,” Aubrey says as she discusses what drew her to Emily. “I liked how physical and powerful the role was. She's a girl from New Jersey who is like this flawed, fish-out-of-water kind of character with all these layers. I just loved the script, and immediately after reading this, I knew this could be a great movie.” 

“It's a hard thing to articulate”, chimes in John when asked what he feels Aubrey brought to the role. “I remember meeting Aubrey for the first time; she has this energy that is so unique and completely her own. She felt dangerous—like she just made everything on the page feel heightened and elevated. I wanted to lean into that energy, but to Aubrey's credit, I never really changed the character; she brought herself and all of her qualities to what was already in the script, completely lit it up, and made it alive in a way it wasn't before.”

Emily the Criminal is John Patton Ford's directorial debut and Aubrey's fourth feature working as a producer. “I don't think we ever had a major clash, but there's definitely still time,” Aubrey laughs, “we mostly just talked things through and came to mutual agreements, and it's ideal for the writer to be the director because it's their story”. Emily the Criminal showcases the harmonious relationship between the director and actor, each of them emanating the feeling that they took a chance and jumped into the deep end together, their individual skills and knowledge complimenting one another. 

Aubrey mentions how powerful she finds Emily as a character, which is something of an understatement. From her confrontations with fellow criminals to her explosive job interviews, Emily never allows herself to become the victim. She's forced into precarious situations and often comes close to victimhood, but always refuses and manages to claw her way back into a position of power. “That's integral”, says John. ‘I always want my characters to be proactive; I don't want them to be a victim of anything. You lose the audience's empathy very quickly when you do that, but I just wanted her to be someone constantly pulling forwards and who was never going to quit or feel sorry for herself. I wanted her to have no pity for herself. She's someone who is always scheming and trying to get through things without throwing up her hands in defeat”.

Typically female protagonists in this genre are defined by their trauma and victimhood. Yet Emily feels like a progressive step away from that outdated perspective. “Female characters always have to justify their wants. Where male characters are allowed to want something just because they want it' muses John when asked why he set this story from the female perspective. “I hesitate to say I wrote from the female perspective. This is just a story from the perspective of one individual; the female perspective is something that I don't feel authenticated to write about. However, I understood this character, and her journey was something that I wanted to see play out”. 

At the centre of Emily the Criminal is a magnetic set of performances from Aubrey and her co-star Theo Rossi. Their on-screen romance emits the dangerous chemistry of an erotic thriller, and it's captivating to see Aubrey and Theo play within that space together. “We had about three days of rehearsing before we started shooting”, explains Aubrey. “We were thrown right into it, and I feel like our chemistry built like our character's does in the movie”. Working with an independent budget, Aubrey and Theo had limited time to carve out that relationship before they shot some of the more extensive, more intense scenes. “The shoot was fast and hard, and in those circumstances, you end up bonding over how crazy everything feels. So, I think it was actually pretty helpful that we shot the movie like we did because we had to learn how to bond and survive together”.

Aubrey isn't exaggerating when she talks about how intense and high-stakes some of the scenes in the movie are. For example, a scene in which Emily is held by the neck at knifepoint is particularly anxiety-inducing, extreme and utterly unlike anything we've seen Aubrey do before. “We did them bit by bit”, John laughs, “They were done in the middle of the night, in not very comfortable locations. We took them one step at a time, working with a stunt coordinator to ensure they were done in a somewhat safe way, but they still felt sketchy in the moment. It sometimes felt like there were real robberies taking place. At one point, I asked myself why I had orchestrated this horrible reality, but we kept cracking at it until we felt like we had something.”

Emily the Criminal is a wild ride, seeing Aubrey Plaza journey into the life of a sordid anti-hero you just can't help but root for.

Emily The Criminal played at the BFI London Film Festival 2022 and will release on October 24th 2022.