- Aubrey Plaza met Joe Biden when she was 16 at a high school conference in Delaware — and had a "stare down."
- They ran into each other later at the White House when Biden was Vice President and Plaza starred on "Parks and Recreation."
Joe Biden and Aubrey Plaza go way back.
Both being from Delaware, Plaza told the New Yorker she has met the current president a number of times starting with a high school student conference.
At 16 years old, she was chosen as the sole student from her high school to participate in the Joe Biden youth leadership conference.
"You'd show up, and it was an entire day's worth of Joe Biden-themed events," she said in the New Yorker interview.
She said the purpose of the convention was for students to share their ideas on issues, but as she recalled, they just "shuttled us from room to room, and there was a different speaker in each room," leading up to the "climax" of the day when Biden would give a speech.
But that's not how the day went, from Plaza's point of view.
"I was really angry about the conference—and, in fact, I had a stare-down with Joe Biden from the audience, because he asked how it went, and I raised my hand immediately, and I was, like, 'It's bullshit. This conference sucks. You didn't let us talk. This was supposed to be about the students,' " she remembered.
Plaza added that her comments upset Biden, whose "face got really red."
The pair had a second encounter when Plaza was playing April Ludgate on "Parks and Recreation." The cast took a trip to Washington D.C. to film some episodes in the nation's capital and, at the time, Biden was Vice President.
She said that before the tour, she ran into Biden and he knew her name. He also told her a story she said he tells her every time they run into each other — that his wife, Jill Biden, went to the same high school as Plaza and how he used to wait for her outside of the convent because it is an all-girls Catholic school.
"It's a very sweet story, but I've heard it a lot. I was, like, 'I know, Joe! She went to Ursuline!'"
During their White House tour, the cast got to make a stop in Biden's then-office.
"I saw a note on his desk that had been written by his assistant on official White House stationery that said, 'Aubrey Plaza'—underlined—'Wilmington, Delaware. You met her at the Joe Biden youth-leadership conference when she was sixteen.' There were bullet points about me," Plaza recalled.
"And I was, like, 'I knew it! He doesn't remember me at all!' But that's how politicians are, you know?" Plaza said.
She told the New Yorker she actually stole that piece of stationery and when she later told 'Parks and Rec' creator about it, he said "You cannot steal from the White House!"
"I was, like, 'I don't give a shit! I know what he did! He didn't know me!'" Plaza said she fought back.
Unfortunately, Plaza said she has since lost the note, but said she could have framed or sold it since he's now the president.
"There's got to be cameras in the White House," Plaza guessed, "But they didn't do anything to me."