Aubrey Plaza says Patti LuPone ‘almost killed’ her with an IV drip

Aubrey Plaza is remembering the time her Agatha All Along costar Patti LuPone almost killed her. 

The Parks and Recreation actress recalled a moment that occurred when she lived with LuPone while performing in an Off Broadway production of Danny and the Deep Blue Sea last year. When Plaza fell ill during the play’s run, the Broadway legend suggested a potential cure — one that very nearly took Plaza out.

“Oh yes, she almost killed me,” she confirmed to Seth Meyers on Late Night With Seth Meyers Thursday night. “Well, it was a long story, but basically I was really sick and she said, ‘You have to see my special nurse. His name is Joe. He comes at night.'”

LuPone informed Plaza that she would be performing at an event when the nurse came, but explained that he was “gonna hook you up to the machine and you’re gonna get all the things that I get, and they’re gonna perk you right up.”

But Meyers joked that LuPone may have had an ulterior motive with her scheduled absence that evening. “I almost feel like her gala is like, ‘I have to go get what’s called an alibi,'” he teased. “‘I have to go be seen by public people.'” 

A laughing Plaza agreed, adding, “Take one picture and come back to the scene of the crime.”

Joe arrived that evening to treat Plaza with an IV drip. “He came and he hooked me up and he said, ‘I’m just gonna give you some vitamins and things like that,'” she recalled. “And then, right before Patti came back, he said, ‘Now, do you want what Patti gets to help you sleep?'”

Plaza agreed to try the “Patti Special” but had no clue that it would change her life. “It was Benadryl, and I found out,” she said. “I thought it was going to be more like a children’s Benadryl [that makes you] a little groggy, but when you get Benadryl just injected intravenously… it was like a horse tranquilizer for me.”

LuPone arrived home just in time to see the effects kick in. “I couldn’t talk. I was going, ‘Haaa,'” Plaza said, purposefully slurring her speech. “And she was dripping in diamonds and she was like, ‘Oh, darling, no!'” 

LuPone instantly swung into action. “She went, ‘I know what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make you a peace of English muffin with peanut butter,'” Plaza recalled. “And I couldn’t speak, and I was like [grunting]. I was having cold sweats, and I was cold, and then I was hot, and I kept going, ‘Joe, am I alright? Am I gonna make it?’ And he was like, ‘Oh, you’ll be fine.'”

Enter: a lifesaving peanut butter English muffin. “She started trying to shove an English muffin in my mouth with peanut butter, and I’m like [chewing], and she’s like, ‘Get it in, get it in,'” Plaza said. “And then finally I came to and finally Joe said, ‘I’m leaving.’ And I came down, and I looked at her, and we just sat in the living room, and I just said, ‘Why is this happening, Patti? Why did this happen?'”

LuPone knew exactly why. “She went, ‘It’s happening because you are on the stage now and you need to toughen up, and that is why it’s happening,'” Plaza said. “And I understood everything about Hollywood in that moment.”

Agatha All Along is streaming now on Disney+. Watch Plaza discuss her scary Benadryl incident in the clip above.