In the movie, Emily initially gets involved in a “dummy shopper” scheme that involves having to pay for products with fake credit cards in order to effectively steal things like TVs and cars. Eventually, she gets deeper into the scam run by Youcef (Theo Rossi), graduating to making her own fake credit cards and running her own fraud operation under Youcef’s watchful eye.
Speaking with W Magazine, Aubrey Plaza explained how she did, in fact, learn how to commit credit card fraud in order to play the role convincingly: “There are YouTube tutorials that show you how to make fake credit cards, fake IDs, all kinds of fake things. The machines are easy to get — you can buy them on eBay!” Asked more about her foray into learning about credit card fraud by Deadline, Plaza admitted that what she discovered was “very useful to know” and that it was “actually really surprising to [her] how easy it is to do and to learn.”
Whatever kind of research and experience Plaza had, it paid off. Scenes of Emily cranking out fake credit cards are just as believable as the rest of the film. Which is probably why the actor told W Mag that she thinks she would make a good criminal:
“I have a lot of that in my blood. I’m not going to go into any more detail, but I’m very street-smart. And savvy. I’d watch out for me.”