Aubrey Plaza is taking the summer off from the Pawnee Parks Department to go back in time. In the sci-fi dramedy Safety Not Guaranteed — expanding to new cities this weekend — she keeps her signature scowl (mostly) in check, playing the polar opposite of her Parks and Rec counterpart. As a Seattle Magazine intern, Darius Britt not only takes initiative, but also takes other people’s shit — with half the snark.

Given that this is her first foray into a leading dramatic role, it helped that the character was crafted specifically for her by writer Derek Connolly, much like her Parks character April, whom she helped brainstorm with co-creator Greg Daniels during her audition. But Plaza couldn’t help but be skeptical when she first received the script.

“I was very excited, but I was afraid that it was going to be bad!” she said with a laugh. “I hadn’t done very many things up until then, but I was very flattered. And I read it and I liked it, which made it even more awesome.”

In addition to her crafted character, it was the movie magic that drew her to the script. “There’s something about the movie that feels very familiar; it has this sort of magical quality that I think Back to the Future and those movies in the ’80s did,” Plaza said. “But it’s also very unique and different — it’s about time travel, but it’s more about the relationships and the characters within.”

In the film, Plaza trades April’s dismissive intern duties for a gritty internship-turned-investigative-reporting gig, diving into the thick of it with her subject, a would-be time traveler named Kenneth (Mark Duplass), with whom she forms more than just camaraderie.

But Plaza is quick to point out the unconventional differences —…