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Weeks since his untimely passing, friends of the late filmmaker Jeff Baena are still remembering his larger-than-life personality and warmth.
Alex Ross Perry, a friend of Baena and his wife, Aubrey Plaza, reflected on his friendship with Baena in an emotional Vanity Fair essay published on Wednesday, January 22, revealing that Baena was known for throwing star-studded game nights. “I asked a group chat to share photos of Jeff’s house—game nights, dinner hangs. I’ve looked at the 60 photos Chad Hartigan sent of various get-togethers over the past year,” he shared. “They capture the essence of Jeff’s house, but nothing will replicate the spirit.”
According to Perry, 40, Baena’s game night guest lists would include “an actor or two you maybe recognized, a filmmaker you’re a fan of, and then some guy, or maybe a few some guys.” Despite the famous faces, Perry said “no personality was larger than any other, except for Jeff’s” at the get-togethers.
“You’d sometimes get the feeling his wife, Aubrey Plaza, was content to be another guest at game night, even in her own home,” he added. “It wasn’t her party. When the door opened and the players came through, Jeff and Aubrey’s home became Jeff’s house with Jeff’s rules.”
Baena’s competitive side, which Perry dubbed “game night Jeff,” is a side of the late star Perry grew familiar with. “I knew him well. Perhaps the most widely known Jeff. To me, this meant Codenames, Balderdash, Rummikub, and Scrabble,” he recalled. “He was undefeated—and undefeatable—at Scrabble. It was astonishing and maddening to play him, and I am incredible at Scrabble.”
Perry lived with Baena for a month while filming 2016’s Joshy, during which he said “every night was game night.” Perry explained: “Every day ended with the cast eating together and listening to music that Jeff, and only Jeff, curated. The ‘work’ was an opportunity for him to sit at the head of the table and not get up for weeks. To host, to curate, to introduce, to nurture. These were Jeff’s objectives, whether at his home for a night or on a shoot for weeks.”
In his essay, Perry noted how he “won’t sit at Jeff’s table again for a game night” following his death at age 47 earlier this month. “Honestly, I don’t know what meaning these recollections will turn out to have. I wanted to write this so that I can read it later and remember what Jeff’s house meant to me.”
News of Baena’s death broke on January 3, after the indie director was found dead in his home. Medical examiner records reviewed by Us Weekly listed his cause of death as suicide.
Plaza, who wed Baena in 2021, broke her silence in the wake of her husband’s passing via a rep statement to Us Weekly. “This is an unimaginable tragedy,” the statement read. “We are deeply grateful to everyone who has offered support. Please respect our privacy during this time.”
Perry previously paid tribute to his late friend in a lengthy Instagram post on January 8. “There will be no rematch in Scrabble — he will remain undefeated against me, and I am great at Scrabble,” he captioned a photo of the two of them. “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. He claimed to have different rods and cones, and be able to see colors others could not.”
