Haley Lu Richardson "Stalked" Aubrey Plaza Before The White Lotus
"I didn't just stalk her on social media, like I showed up to places I was not invited."
Haley Lu Richardson may have been a little *too* inspired by her White Lotus castmate Aubrey Plaza’s 2017 movie Ingrid Goes West. In that movie, Plaza’s character inserted herself into a popular influencer’s life through a scary amount of stalking, and it turns out, Richardson did something similar to Plaza IRL. Yep — Haley Lu Richardson admitted to stalking Aubrey Plaza long before the two were both cast on The White Lotus Season 2, and she shared some hilarious stories about their unique dynamic in a recent interview.
Portia and Harper really don’t interact at all on The White Lotus, but the same can’t be said for the actors who play them. During her Dec. 5 appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Richardson admitted she was a “crazed” Aubrey Plaza fan before she ever properly met her, and would purposefully crash events she was at and get close with her inner circle.
“I know she has a lot of crazed fans, but I’m like one of the top three,” Richardson said. “I legitimately stalked her. I didn’t just stalk her on social media, like I showed up to places I was not invited knowing she was there. I got close to her cousins and her friends so that I would be invited into her life. And it worked, ‘cuz I’m on a show with her now!”
She went on to describe how Plaza finally noticed her when she snuck into her birthday party. “I showed up at her birthday party and I saw her,” Richardson said. “I was uninvited and she didn’t know I was coming. It was like a bunch of people there at a bar but it was definitely an intimate, invite-only party. And she saw me from across the bar and just went, ‘you,’ and walked away. It was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Plaza volleyed the slightly creepy behavior back at Richardson after she learned they’d be starring in Season 2 of The White Lotus together. “I got a text from her after I found out I booked the show,” Richardson said. “I got a text from an unknown number that was literally just like a knife and a drip of blood. And I knew; I knew it was Aubrey. And it was; it was her.”
Thankfully, stalking was the perfect method to ingratiate Richardson to Plaza. The two talked about the weird start to their friendship in a Nov. 4 convo for Interview Magazine. “There was something deep down inside all along that was like, ‘Even though she’s stalking me, and maybe eventually she’ll cut me up into a million pieces and eat me, I like her,’” Plaza said. “In fact, I love her.”
