Aubrey Plaza was 'told to really masturbate' in movie by director

Actors have to do all sorts of bizarre things for the sake of their art, but Aubrey Plaza was caught completely off guard when she was told to get herself off for real on camera.

Usually you'd expect this kind of request to be linked to a very specific, much more explicit kind of movie, so it's no surprise she was surprised by the instruction that came while she was working on a rom-com about a teenager.

Hear Plaza recall her experience below:

The To-Do List, which for the record, was deemed suitable for anyone over the age of 15, was released in 2013 and followed Plaza as Brandy Klark, a sexually inexperienced high school senior who was determined to find out more about what goes on between the sheets before heading off to college.

As part of her mission, Brandy tries to get to know her own preferences a little better with some self-love - a scene which Plaza figured would be pretty simple to film.

Recalling the experience in an interview with Conan O'Brien, the Parks and Recreation star said: "In my head, I envisioned a nice scene where you see my hand slowly go out of frame."

Varsity Pictures

If that had been the case, Plaza would have just had to pull off a few convincing facial expressions and be done with it.

But apparently that's not quite what director Maggie Carey had in mind.

She joked: "When I showed up, the camera was mounted on the ceiling, I was in my underwear and a Clinton t-shirt, and there were a bunch of old men smoking, ya know, the crew guys. And then I went and touched myself."

Plaza assured there weren't actually a load of men smoking on the set, but she made clear the reality wasn't what she'd expected.

"I thought I was doing one thing and then when I showed up, it was a whole different thing, it was a full body shot," Plaza explained.

Varsity Pictures

"And I asked the director, 'What should I do?' And she said, 'Masturbate, like it says in the script'."

Plaza has previously opened up about her experience to Oregon Live, saying the scene was the scariest out of everything she shot for the movie.

She explained: "Looking back on it, I feel like the masturbating scene was a little bit the most nerve-racking. Just because in my head I thought, 'Oh, we'll probably shoot this in a way where I don't really have to really do it'.

"But then when we did it and I was like, 'Oh no, we're going to shoot it where I do it'."

I suppose it makes the scene a bit more convincing, at least?

Tyla has contacted a rep for Maggie Carey for comment.