Aubrey Plaza used convent job as inspiration for nun role

Actress Aubrey Plaza used her background as a convent receptionist to help her portray a naughty nun in controversial new film The Little Hours.

The Dirty Grandpa star grew up with nuns as a student at all girls Catholic school Ursuline Academy, Delaware, and actually worked in the adjacent convent, where she learned that women of the cloth come in all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities.

"My school had a convent attached to the school and the campus," she tells WENN. "My first job ever was in the convent. My first professional pay check came from the convent. I was the fortress, which is like a convent receptionist.

"A lot of our nuns were really old and sweet. They drove Buicks; they had a bunch of Buicks lined up in a row, I remember that. There was one nun that I interacted with the most, Sister Betty, and she was kind of like a teacher. She didn't wear a habit and she played the guitar, so I got a lot of variations of what nuns can be like."

She used that information to create her character Sister Fernanda in the updated adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio's 14th century novella The Decameron and admits she's glad she didn't have to read the book.

"I did try to listen to The Decameron on tape, which is 10 minutes, but the language was so flowery that I got through about one minute and I had to turn it off."

Aubrey reveals the cast of the film, which also features newlyweds Dave Franco and Alison Brie, shot the project in "an actual medieval convent" in Tuscany, adding, "It was from the time period that the movie is set, so all of that was helpful just walking through those halls and being in those rooms. When we weren't shooting we'd sit in the gardens. It was very peaceful."