Parks and Recreation character April Ludgate was known for not caring for rules and bureaucracy, and the actress who portrayed her, Aubrey Plaza, channeled that attitude during a visit to the White House.
Appearing on her former Parks and Rec co-star Amy Poehler‘s Good Hang podcast, Plaza recalled visiting the White House with the rest of the cast when Barack Obama was President and Joe Biden served as the vice president. The cast was invited on a tour following Biden’s guest appearances on the hit NBC sitcom; he made a cameo in Season 5 and again in the series finale.
As the pair reminisced about the tour, Plaza admitted that she stole something from Biden’s desk.
“I saw a little, like, vice president-monogrammed notebook piece of paper that said, like, ‘Aubrey Plaza’ and then, like, three facts about me,” the Agatha All Along actress shared. “That’s what the politicians do, they get their little… and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, how’d he remember?’”
Plaza remembered one of the facts included that she and Biden share a hometown in Wilmington, Delaware. But she also recalled how Parks and Rec showrunner Michael Schur reprimanded her for taking the notes.
“He was like, ‘You cannot steal something from [the VP’s desk]…’ And I was like, ‘Oh, shut up, Mike.’ And he was like, ‘We’re literally in the White House.’ And I was like, ‘We are?’”
Poehler added that Plaza never got in trouble from the White House. “No one ever knew,” she said, noting how surprised she was over the lack of security within the rooms.
“I am kind of surprised that there’s no, like, alarm system in there,” the Saturday Night Live alum commented.
“There’s nothing in there, it’s like a house of cards,” Plaza replied.
“It is weird how janky the White House actually is,” Poehler added. “It’s like SNL, you go in there, and you’re like, ‘This is the White House? Like, this place sucks.’ It’s like a hotel room used for a million years.”
You can watch the segment and the full interview in the video above.