Who Is Natasha Lyonne? Everything to Know About the Poker Face Star
Get to know the star of Peacock’s hit crime comedy series just in time for the big Poker Face Season 2 premiere.
A new season of Poker Face is only weeks away from launching on Peacock, returning star Natasha Lyonne to the Rian Johnson-created crime comedy series as the lovably rough-around-the-edges detective Charlie Cale. Lyonne’s reluctant crime-solving sleuth is definitely an unconventional sort of TV hero — a sass-talking slacker and ex-casino worker who’s winning at life simply by road-tripping her way out of trouble.
Known these days for endearingly tough-talking roles across screens both big and small, Lyonne can’t help but stand out as an actor. Layering her quick-witted characters with a signature measure of world-weary humor, Lyonne’s unmistakable attitude is almost as recognizable as her fiery shag of red hair.
RELATED: What Happened at the End of Poker Face Season 1? Everything to Know Before Season 2
But at age 46, Lyonne’s actually been at this whole acting game far longer than her recent fans might realize. That’s why we’re taking a quick detour down memory lane to highlight her surprisingly lengthy acting career… while uncovering a few fun bonus facts along the way!
Poker Face star Natasha Lyonne’s early acting roles: from American Pie to Scary Movie 2
Born in New York City in 1979, Lyonne was still getting regular visits from the Tooth Fairy when she first began taking on acting roles as a child. In 1986 at the age of 7, she joined the cast of Pee-wee’s Playhouse as a regular member of the Saturday-morning series’ Playhouse Gang, while also showing up the same year opposite Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep for a small movie role in the comedy drama Heartburn.
By the time she hit her teens, Lyonne was already appearing in a diverse lineup of feature films, tackling lighthearted comedy in 1993’s Dennis the Menace (as Polly the babysitter) alongside more nuanced roles in films like Everyone Says I Love You (where a 16-year-old Lyonne played Woody Allen’s fictional daughter), as well as leading a star-studded cast in the 1998 dramatic comedy Slums of Beverly Hills.
RELATED: Every Guest Star in Poker Face Season 2 & Where You've Seen Them Before
In her 20s, Lyonne began showing even more of her prodigious comedic side to a receptive mainstream audience as Jessica, the hilariously grown-up friend who dishes out seasoned romance advice in the raunchy American Pie comedy films. More mainstream success came with 2001’s Scary Movie 2 (where Lyonne played the cheekily-named horror victim Megan Voorhees), even as she continued to curate her early-2000s career choices with deeper and more thoughtful roles in films like Zig Zag, Party Monster, and The Grey Zone.
Poker Face & more: Natasha Lyonne’s recent career
Peacock’s Poker Face is only the latest in a lengthy string of hugely acclaimed roles that have come to define Natasha Lyonne’s resurgent recent career.
From 2013-2019, Lyonne cemented her fan-favorite status on the small screen thanks to her scene-stealing turn as inmate Nicky Nichols in Orange is the New Black. She hung around the Portlandia comedy-verse for a stint of funny guest spots during the show’s later seasons, right before striking comedy-drama paydirt as Nadia Vulvokov — the time-challenged star at the center of a Groundhog Day-style death mystery in Russian Doll (a series Lyonne also co-created alongside Leslye Headland and Amy Poehler).
RELATED: Poker Face Adds Even More Guest Stars for Season 2: Rhea Perlman, Simon Helberg & More
Lyonne’s behind-the-camera creative role on Russian Doll typifies another of her recent moves: In addition to acting, she’s also making major industry waves as a writer, director, and producer. Teaming up in 2018 with Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph, she co-founded Animal Pictures — the production company behind projects like Russian Doll, Loot, and yep... even Poker Face. Lyonne’s also helmed numerous TV episodes as a director (including installments of both Russian Doll and Poker Face), while also hinting recently to Deadline that she’s in the midst of another career first: writing and directing her own feature film.
What’s up with Natasha Lyonne’s famous red hair?
You know you’re entering iconic territory when trendsetters like Vogue devote entire articles to your hair — and these days, it’s definitely tough to separate Lyonne from her iconic red ‘do. It’s a look that seems to flow naturally with the kind of brash and sassy characters she plays, but Lyonne’s frizzy curls aren’t the only single trick in her style repertoire.
A natural strawberry blonde, Lyonne sported both shaggy and straight hairstyles during her teen and young-adult career years — and even recently, she’s been known to toss her followers a curve ball with an occasional softer, more straightened blowout look. But when it comes to matching her looks with her spirited on-screen attitude, Lyonne has freely confessed to taking creative cues not from the pages of style magazines, but from some of Hollywood’s toughest-talking male actors.
RELATED: Cynthia Erivo's Wild Poker Face Role Revealed — She's Playing Multiple Characters!?
“I've been stealing from [Robert] De Niro my whole life,” she confided in a 2023 AV Club interview. “[As] much as I love Bette Davis and Mae West and Gena Rowlands, I often found myself identifying with the Peter Falks and the Joe Pescis and the Jimmy Cagneys — all the boys. Certainly, by the time I was writing Russian Doll, I saw a character who was the perfect mix of feminine and masculine.”
How can you watch Poker Face Season 2?
Natasha Lyonne returns in Poker Face beginning Thursday May 8, when Season 2 of the clever mystery-of-the-week series premieres only on Peacock. The May 8 premiere will drop the season’s first three episodes all at once, before settling into a weekly groove that debuts individual new episodes every Thursday. In the meantime, you can stream Season 1 of Poker Face in its entirety on Peacock right here.
Not yet a subscriber? No worries! Peacock offers two monthly subscription plans: Premium ($7.99 a month with ads) and Premium Plus ($13.99 a month with no ads and download access for certain titles). If you're a student, you can enjoy the Premium plan for just $1.99 for an entire year!
