Aubrey Plaza recalled one of the most uncomfortable situations she experienced while filming ‘Dirty Grandpa’ alongside Robert De Niro.
The actress said on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that a sex scene between the two took approximately nine or ten hours to film and that much of it was improvised on the spot.
In the middle of filming, director Dan Mazer began giving Plaza unexpected instructions. In one of the takes, he directly asked her to suck De Niro’s nipples.
Plaza asked him if he really wanted her to do it and, at the director’s insistence, she tried. But De Niro began pushing her away with his hand.
The actress did not know whether that was part of the performance or whether the actor genuinely wanted to stop her. Eventually, they cut the scene and Mazer explained what was happening: De Niro did not want attention drawn to that part of his body.
“Great, now he thinks I wanted to do that”, Plaza recalled through laughter.
The actress also said that the scene was particularly strange because many of the actions had not been fully established before they began filming, and the director kept trying out different ideas during the takes.
Thus, a scene that ended up lasting only a few minutes on screen turned into nearly ten hours of unexpected situations, improvisations, and an awkward attempt by Aubrey Plaza to get too close to Robert De Niro.