On The Late Show, Aubrey Plaza talks playing her first mom, really wanting to be Catwoman

Well, that finally happened. After spending much of her time at Parks And Recreation playing de facto weirdo mother figure to boyfriend/husband/human Labrador Retriever Andy Dwyer, Aubrey Plaza has been cast as her first ever onscreen mother in the Child’s Play remake. In the clip shown on Friday’s Late Show, Plaza’s harried horror movie mom deals with her young son’s adamant belief that his new Chucky doll is walking around stabbing everybody with the sort of no-nonsense yet vaguely irritated concern appropriate to the traditionally thankless disbelieving mother role. The Ingrid Goes West star, however, did bring some of that gleam-eyed mischievous intensity to her part that made it seem like she and screen offspring Gabriel Bateman were engaged in something of a familial war of wills—and equals. Which makes sense since, as Plaza told Colbert, she and Bateman were, at the time, embroiled in the sort of on-set prank war that was more sibling nasty than lovingly maternal.

“I mean this in the best possible way—you’re a terrible mother,” joked Colbert after the clip, to which Plaza deadpanned disagreement, citing her willingness to get up at 5 a.m. to drive to (the 14-year-old) Bateman’s house to try to scare him as proof of commitment, if nothing else. Unimpressed by her efforts, Plaza said Bateman eventually teamed up with her for a healing campaign of mother-son fish-based pranking of Child’s Play costar Brian Tyree Henry. As it was with April Ludgate, there’s a whole new motherhood paradigm in play when you cast Aubrey Plaza. (Not that we need another Addams Family movie, but Plaza as Morticia seems a no-brainer, right?)

As to what’s next, Plaza confessed to Colbert that, yes, she would really like to be Catwoman in the upcoming, Robert Pattinson-starring Batman movie, even if, as she put it with signature catty disdain, “There’s no way in hell they’re gonna cast me.” (Their loss, although Plaza—seemingly without irony—did tell Colbert how much she loved the infamously terrible Halle Berry Catwoman.) Colbert, nothing if not helpful, whipped out some cat ears, a water dish, and a dangling cat toy to prod Plaza into an impromptu televised audition (something that always turns out well), a goof that the appropriately impish Plaza took to with a provocative glee that seemed to take even Colbert by surprise. (Maybe it was crawling on his desk and preening for head-scratches. Or the screeching. Or the face-lick.) At any rate—your move, casting people.