Aubrey Plaza Tells Jimmy Fallon Edgar Wright Thought She Was the New Tomb Raider — Because of Our Latest Cover

Aubrey Plaza is on the new cover of MovieMaker, and she told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that her friend Edgar Wright noticed something about it that, until now, none of us did.

As recounted in our cover story, one of Plaza’s breakthrough roles was in Wright’s 2010 film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. So they go way back. She told Fallon that when Wright saw the cover, he texted her.

“Yeah, so my friend Edgar Wright actually saw that and texted me and said, ‘Oh my God — you’re the new Lara Croft? You’re the new Tomb Raider?’ And I was like, no Edgar. That’s my movie Emily the Criminal. And he genuinely thought I was cast as the new Tomb Raider.” (You can watch the whole interaction above, starting at about 3:13.)

We get it: There’s a strap across Plaza’s shoulder in the image on the cover. But as Fallon noted: “That’s not a gun holster. That’s just a purse.”

“That’s a purse, yeah,” said Plaza.

Fallon then held up the cover next to an image of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, aka Tomb Raider, and, well, yeah. (Should we have airbrushed out the purse?)

But hey, Aubrey Plaza as Tomb Raider isn’t the worst idea. “I can see this happening!” Fallon said. “I can actually see this happening!”

“And then I looked it up and they are actually casting this role right now and I was like, ‘There you go. The new Tomb Raider. Whatever.”

Also Read: Aubrey Plaza Landed the 3 Roles That Made Her Famous in a Single Week

The role of Lara Croft was last played in 2018 by Alicia Vikander, who recently told EW that she’s ready to make a Tomb Raider sequel, but that “It’s kind of in somebody else’s hands.”

Edgar Wright later tweeted this story you’re reading, with the comment, “This is 100 percent true.”

And, just to tie all this up in a bow: Edgar Wright was on the cover of MovieMaker almost exactly a year ago, alongside Thomasin McKenzie, star of his film Last Night in Soho. No one mistook them for Lara Croft.

Main Image: Jimmy Fallon holds up the cover of MovieMaker Magazine featuring Aubrey Plaza, side by side with Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, on The Tonight Show