Aubrey Plaza's role on 'Legion' was written for a middle-aged man

March 15 (UPI) -- Aubrey Plaza told Conan O'Brien that her role on FX's Marvel show Legion was originally meant to be played by a middle-aged man. The 32-year-old actress told the late night host on Tuesday night that she had coffee with show creator Noel Hawley and he asked her to play the role of Lenny.

"I remember having coffee with him, I was on crutches at the time because I had torn my ACL...I don't know, that has nothing to do with it but maybe there was something in my behavior," she explained.

"That made him think of you as an older man...on crutches," O'Brien said.

"That made him think I was like an old man ordering black coffee with no sugar..I don't know what it was, but he asked me to do it and I said yes," Plaza continued.

O'Brien said it was more like she has the attitude of an older man. The actress said it was really complicated and hard to explain.

"It's Marvel so...It's one of those shows... its really, it's very trippy and kind of hard to talk about, but yeah, I am many things and an old man is one of them," she said.

"That quote's gonna follow you for the rest of your life," Conan said.

Legion also stars Downtown Abbey's Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton and Bill Irwin and airs on Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET on FX.