Natasha Lyonne on Season 2 of 'Poker Face'

Welcome to the Parade Interview

Shaky cam may occur. It's truly speaking to your directorial style that you're really just bringing all the cinema verite

into this interview. Listen, I gotta tell you, when I see a center punch zoom

I've never been more bored. You know, especially if it's like right on access

and the sound is just so, I'm like, well, this isn't something that really is an art form that interests me

We invented it during a pandemic. That's true, that's true. Well, let's maybe we'll liven up the conversation to perhaps make up for the stationary camera

Yes, sir. Isn't that more fun? Well, I got to start by wishing you a happy belated birthday

Do you, though? I think I'm just going to call it at about, I don't know

I know it's not old Hollywood, but I can certainly say like, hey, you know, yeah, 39 is nuts or something

Or I could go the other way. Like, you know, ever since I turned 7,000, life really, really changed for me

I don't know that I need this sort of middle portion, you know

You never hear like mid-age bonanza, you hear like middle-age crisis. I like to sidestep that Well let talk about Poker Face here Once you got through a first season and got the audience reception behind it so positively so did that change the way that you looked at

and prepared for and worked on season two? It's very moving when people like your stuff

It's always surprising. This was obviously so interesting in that, you know, we really built

a whole network with Peacock. So it was kind of like a, we really all took a chance, I guess

on each other or something, and it really paid off. So it was very exciting, I guess, to watch them be so excited

And I think we did things like we broke, like, Nielsen's ratings. I didn't even know about Nielsen's ratings

I've been on Netflix for so long. Yeah, it's really fun. It's really fun being in, you know, hits

I understand why people like Spielberg, like, enjoy it or something. Or, you know, not to equate the two, but just Michael Bay or something

What was so interesting about Poker Face is, to your point, widespread, you went to so many different locations, so many different tones

And then there was this through line of obviously your character. And we get some drips and drabs of her backstory, right

Yeah, I mean, I think that the primary thing for Ryan and I was to not really have it be

about, you know, this like character study so much as like a fun hangout show

So, you know, like you end up learning so much more. I think mostly what I respond to about that is also this idea of playing male roles in a way Like it a very female sort of trope thing that you got to know like you know how she doing romantically and professionally

And is she good at her job? And like, you know, is she likable or something

Poker Face is so beautiful because, you know, it's like an adult concept of like we lose interest in ourselves and gain interest in our fellows in a way

which is she, like, she's sort of on the case of anybody but herself, which on some level you could say is, you know, whatever

An Instagram meme would give you a psychological condition to answer that

I don't think that Charlie is somebody who's, like, avoiding the truth of herself by being on the road

I don't think it's that at all. Like, I think it's literally that, like

so many male characters we've seen historically, she's somebody that's, like, actually up to what she's up to

She's f***ing, you know, taking a ride across America. She's on the run from the law

It was her best friend that got her in that trouble. And now she's back for season two

And is Parade a smoking magazine or sort of a non-smoking? You can do whatever makes you feel most comfortable

I've tried really hard to quit smoking, and I then was vaping a lot

And I was vaping at an amount that I thought was disturbing. I started vaping a certain kind of newfangled thing that only a teenager should have It really lit up in places It was nauseating I was concerned Now I think I going to have to quit smoking and vaping

I think I'm going to have to go whole hog. I don't think vaping is very healthy

And I know smoking is not. Has being on Poker Face either made you a better liar or has made you a better lie detector

Lie detector. Because I definitely was already wired for that. but I didn't know that it was legal

And then now it's like a trendy superpower. So I can do it a lot. Let's look back a little bit because, you know

recently we celebrated the 25 year anniversary of, but I'm a cheerleader

Talk to me about how you look back on it. Fondly with great love and affection

So I just, I love that film so much. And I'm so happy that it means something to people

Like, but I'm a cheerleader, sort of had this like ability to tell young kids

that it was okay to be themselves and there's nothing I believe in more than, you know, equality and human rights

For me, the idea that that would like unveil even, you know

with some tiny pocket of shame for any real person is, you know, at the core of why I bother doing any of this