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TV Discussion: Poker Face ft. Natasha Lyonne (on Paramount +)

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Natasha Lyonne on the Surreal Freedom of Make-Believe: “I’m Pretty Honest About That Being My Kink”

The singular star of ‘Poker Face’ also talks childhood, death, and how her inner voice sounds like noir.
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Natasha Lyonne on the Surreal Freedom of Make-Believe: “I’m Pretty Honest About That Being My Kink”​

The singular star of Poker Face also talks childhood, death, and how her inner voice sounds like noir.
By Joy PressPhotography by Camilla ÅkransStyled by Celia Azoulay
January 23, 2025
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The high-spirited Natasha Lyonne was photographed at Gary’s Lofts in New York City on November 3. Clothing by Gucci; bralette and briefs by Intimissimi.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay


“What’s so amazing about having a moment is they let you do stuff,” says Natasha Lyonne, her halo of orange curls bobbing in the East Village twilight. “It means your ideas are worthy of bankrolling and worthy of actually getting made. And it means the freedom to not have to hustle quite so hard. You don’t have to go in and open your briefcase, show your wares, and have people say, ‘No, thank you, we’re not looking for any stopwatches today.’ I’ve had decades of that.
Lyonne lurked at the margins of Hollywood a long time, an eccentric with self-confessed niche appeal. But in recent years, she’s moved closer to the center—or maybe the center has finally come to her. After co-creating the mind-bending Emmy-winning series Russian Doll with Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler, Lyonne scored a hit with the charming retro murder mystery series Poker Face and was acclaimed last fall for her moving performance in His Three Daughters. Her days are now a frantic treadmill: appearances in the upcoming Fantastic Four movie and Taika Waititi’s Klara and the Sun; producing, starring in, and directing some episodes of Poker Face’s second season; and developing projects for her own production company, Animal Pictures. “I’ve had moments in life that have been lonely and dark and broke enough where your priority is definitely not ‘Did you pitch a TV show well this morning?’ So if I hear myself being like, I’m so tired—that means I’ve lost the gratitude for how extraordinary my circumstance is.”
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Clothing by Stella McCartney; cap by Lynn Paik; shoes by Manolo Blahnik; sunglasses by Selima Optique.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
Lyonne appeared in Pee-wee’s Playhouse as a child and starred in Slums of Beverly Hills and American Pie as a young adult. Now 45, she looks back in anger rather than nostalgia. “I remember those years pretty well, against my will,” she says in that raspy New York accent that sounds like a wiseguy crossed with a borscht belt comedian. “There’s something about being alert and in the workforce as a child—you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, you can’t unknow what you’ve seen.” That sensation of being a commodity has informed everything she’s done since.
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Dress and bracelets by Chanel.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
The second child of Orthodox Jewish parents, Lyonne grew up in New York and Israel against a backdrop of drinking sprees, fights, and general volatility. Her mother was an aspiring ballerina, her father a boxing promoter and radio shock jock who, she says, did things like calling into Howard Stern’s show while she was a guest. All this made them what she diplomatically calls “tricky” stage parents: “You don’t necessarily want to win at this thing that you’re being told is a prize, so I was always trying to hide in the shadows. Since my parents’ dream was for me to be famous, my whole purpose in life was to try to crush their dream by not doing that.” Instead of getting her degree at NYU, she picked up a heroin addiction and (after she had kicked her habit) had open-heart surgery to repair the damage.
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Dress by Loewe; bralette by Eres; briefs by Commando; bracelet by Bulgari High Jewelry.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
After her parents died—circa Orange Is the New Black, in which she played a junkie—she began to feel more comfortable being front and center as an actor. “I always dreamed of this fantasy place where I was able to do the thing I loved so much,” she says, “but without this albatross on my back of being somebody else’s funnel for cash.” Now that she’s arrived at this dream destination, Lyonne is reveling in her new freedom to stretch out in projects that tickle her imagination. “It’s like going off on this little adventure into this space that’s not quite here or there—it’s a third space, and we’re all gonna agree that it’s real and live there for a while,” she says. She breaks into a huge smile. “I’m pretty honest about that being my kink.”
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Clothing by Valentino.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
For Russian Doll, she and her collaborators, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, assembled an all-female writers room to invent a genre. As Lyonne booms in the deep tones of a movie trailer narrator, it was “quantum physics meets trauma meets comedy.” Her own character, Nadia, had a touch of the Philip Marlowe gumshoe about her, so it’s not surprising to hear that Lyonne spent much of her youth in rundown New York theaters and YMCAs watching noir films. She eventually developed an internal voice that narrated everything she saw and experienced as if she were living inside a noir. “I’m sure a therapist would just call it disassociating from trauma,” she adds with a shrug.
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Dress by Bottega Veneta; shoes by Giuseppe Zanotti; necklace by Bulgari High Jewelry.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
This dovetailed perfectly with Rian Johnson’s notion of making a Columbo-style series. While Russian Doll’s Nadia was trying to unravel her own existential mystery, Poker Face’s Charlie ends up traveling the country as a fugitive, helping solve strangers’ murders. “Charlie loves people and can’t help but get herself tangled up in helping them,” Lyonne says. The character is witty and warm, putting people at ease as she drifts through unglamorous pockets of America. Lyonne says Charlie belongs to a classic American lineage of drifters who “just hang out on the fringes of society as a witness.” Which reminds me of the way she describes herself to me, as “the quiet one, sort of like the witness” in her own family. “I was always cataloging scenes and vignettes and tableaus. I did always think I would be able to write my way out of whatever nightmare I found myself in.”
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Dress and bralette by Dior; hat by Lock & Co. Hatters.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
That death is a primary motif in Poker Face—and other recent projects—is not a coincidence. “I am endlessly, recklessly fascinated with the fact that we die at the end of our movie, no matter what we do,” she says. “You could not think of a more insane outcome to this whole gig than this finality.” Lyonne, the rare actor who name-drops philosophers and actively wants to discuss string theory, points out that despite our being steeped in futuristic technology, “we’re still stuck in an actual lived experience where we have no idea when it’ll hit. You could just walk down the street and a brain aneurysm or a bus hits you.”
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Dress by Rabanne; hat by Lynn Paik; sunglasses by Selima Optique x Dusan Reljin. Throughout: hair products by Oribe; makeup products by Tom Ford Beauty; nail enamel by CND.Photograph by Camilla Åkrans; Styled by Celia Azoulay
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All the more reason to enjoy her hot streak, hopscotching between Klara, which is based on a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, and a Marvel blockbuster. “I’m very moved that they want me to be in that movie,” Lyonne says of Fantastic Four, adding that she’s known costar Ebon Moss-Bachrach for 25 years. Oddly enough, she sees dots connecting the movies: “It is all very interstellar-type stuff, coming at it from different directions.” Her eyes light up. “I’m also in the Smurfs movie,” she says, “and actually some stuff does happen that’s…I don’t want to get into it, because I’ll get in trouble. But assuming that I’m dead by 8:45 p.m. tonight and they have to cut the movies together in a mash-up, it will all marry well, I think.”
 

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