Director Alex Ross Perry is remembering his bond with the late Jeff Baena.
“I’ve struggled for days on how to summarize my friendship with Jeff Baena into just a few paragraphs. I could write more. I should,” Perry, 40, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, January 8. “But Jeff wouldn’t write that much: he’d want a concise outline with the basic idea, and then to riff and expand upon it in the moment later.”
He added, “But there is no later, and that is impossible to believe. There will be no ‘Next time I stay at Jeff and Aubrey’s house,’ which I did countless times. If you’ve seen me in L.A. in the last 10 years, it is probably because Jeff gave me a place to stay. He fed me. He made amazing smoothies. Ordered delivery from places he knew I liked but wouldn’t have time to go to.”
Us Weekly confirmed on January 4 that Baena died by suicide one day prior at age 47. He is survived by wife Aubrey Plaza, his parents and his siblings.
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“There will be no next time for an inexplicable and huge Magpies delivery waiting for me,” Perry continued his lengthy tribute. “There will be no rematch in Scrabble — he will remain undefeated against me, and I am great at Scrabble. He knew words other people didn’t. He possessed facts that were so esoteric, they couldn’t be fact-checked. He had opinions that were so baffling as to be definite.”
Perry wrote that Baena “believed in me more than most people” when it came to his own directorial career.
“It’s hard to think about the totality of support and enthusiasm you receive from a friend over a decade,” Perry added. “From putting me in Joshy to making sure I had an episode of his experimental, pandemic show Cinema Toast (the reason I am in the DGA), he always wanted me to be working, and for us to be working together. I loved all of the ideas he has been telling me about upcoming movies and stories he wanted to make and share. They were weird. They were unusual. And they were typical Jeff.”
Perry credited Baena for being the one who “brought [him] together with a lot of wonderful talented people” in the industry.
“I hope my connections to them endure, and that we always talk about him,” Perry concluded. “We are all better for having known Jeff.”
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Perry is among the many stars — including Plaza, 40 — who have publicly addressed Baena’s death.
“This is an unimaginable tragedy,” Plaza’s rep said in a statement on behalf of the actress and her family in a statement to Us on Monday, January 6. “We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support. Please respect our privacy during this time.”
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