Aubrey Plaza explains why grieving her husband Jeff Baena’s death is like the movie ‘The Gorge’

For Aubrey Plaza, grief is like a gorge.

On Tuesday’s episode of Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, the actress opened up about how she’s been coping with the grief of the death of her husband, Jeff Baena, earlier this year. Baena died by suicide on Jan. 3. He was 47 years old.

To help contextualize her grief, Plaza referenced the 2025 sci-fi romance film The Gorge, which stars Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy as two elite operatives who are tasked with protecting the world from a mysterious evil that lies within a deep gorge.

“In the movie, there’s like a cliff on one side, and there’s a cliff on the other side, and then this gorge in between, and it’s filled with all these monster people that are trying to get them. I swear, when I watched it, I was like, ‘That feels like what my grief is like … or what grief could be like,’” she said.

The Honey, Don’t! actress continued: “At all times, there’s like a giant ocean of just awfulness that’s right there, and I can see it. And sometimes, I just want to just dive into it, and just ... be in it. And then sometimes, I just look at it. And then sometimes, I try to get away from it. But it’s always there.”

Poehler initially broached the subject of Baena’s death by asking Plaza how she’s been dealing with the tragedy.

“You had this terrible, terrible, tragic year,” Poehler, who starred alongside Plaza on Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015, said. “You lost your husband. You’ve been dealing with that, and you’ve been looking for all different ways in which to feel and find support. I think, on behalf of all the people who feel like they know you, and the people who do know you, how are you feeling today?”

Plaza said that “in this present moment,” she feels happy to be with Poehler and that she’s functioning overall.

“I feel really grateful to be moving through the world. I think I’m OK, but you know, it’s like a daily struggle, obviously,” she said.

Jeff Baena and Aubrey Plaza in 2016. (David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)

Plaza’s candor has resonated with fans who’ve experienced their own losses. Many have taken to social media platforms like TikTok and X, or commented on the YouTube video of the interview itself to thank Plaza for her honesty.

“The beautiful vulnerability that Aubrey shows at the beginning of this podcast is incredible. At a time when everyone posts only the highlights of their life, it’s so vulnerable to even just show up,” one fan commented on the YouTube video. Another fan added: “This was a beautiful, kind and loving interview. Discussions of grief honestly help me in mine; I’m sending so much love and healing to Aubrey and anyone else facing the Grief Gorge.”

Plaza began dating Baena, a writer and director with whom she had often collaborated, in 2011. Fans learned that the pair had secretly married when the actress referred to him as her “darling husband” in an Instagram post in May 2021.

The Ingrid Goes West star previously spoke about the ups and downs of working with your partner.

“My partner’s a filmmaker, and we’ve made movies together,” Plaza said during a 2020 episode of HFPA In Conversation. "We’ve had really good experiences and really bad experiences, and I think I learned going through those things that ultimately, you know, movies come and go. Movies — it’s what our lives are built off of. But when you’re about to die, you don’t think about the movies. You think about the people in your life and your relationships. I think that’s what most people think about before they die.”