Where Was Poker Face Filmed? Locations For Rian Johnson's Hit Peacock Series
Charlie Cale's fugitive status takes the character to a number of different locations across the United States.
No BS. Natasha Lyonne's human lie detector Charlie Cale is back on the run in the star-studded second season of Poker Face (debuting on Peacock Thursday, May 8), which means she'll be roaming up and down the country once again, stumbling into one murder mystery after another.
This time around, however, she's not trying to evade Vegas casino boss Sterling Frost (Ron Perlman), but feared underworld figure Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Pearlman), whose plan to frame Charlie for Frost's murder in the Season 1 finale went completely awry, sparking an all-out mob war. Other than that little tweak to the overarching story element, the core concept remains the same: Ms. Cale roams the United States in her trusty Plymouth Barracuda, solving mysteries in the persistent style of Peter Falk's Columbo.
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“We cut ourselves loose as far as the writing goes so that when you sit down to watch an episode, you have no idea where Charlie will end up next,” series creator, writer, director, and executive producer Rian Johnson (Looper, Knives Out) says in the Season 1 production notes. “We thought, okay, this is a road trip show. So let's really try and have a different world for every single one.”
Where was Poker Face filmed?
To make a long story short: Poker Face was filmed all over the place. Given the fact that the show's main character is forced to relocate to a different town every episode, production designer Judy Rhee was tasked with building new environments for each episode.
While Charlie crosses state borders all the time within the world of the show, Rhee was able to utilize a "a roughly 40-mile radius in New York" as a stand-in for the majority of Season 1's narrative backdrops. There were also trips to Nevada and New Mexico for desert-based stories, whose locations could not be faked on the East Coast.
“There is no ‘Meanwhile back at the precinct’ on Poker Face,” Rhee explains. “There were certain locations that we were trying to retrofit the episodes into because of the limitations we had. We were able to find places that could pass for Texas, the Southwest or The Adirondacks."
“Judy did amazing work designing ten movies on the schedule and the budget of a tv show,” adds Johnson.
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Season 2 posed a similar challenge for Rhee, whose work usually included three days on a New York soundstage and another seven on location somewhere in the tri-state area. Per the press notes, rural parts of New York stood in for Florida, while a baseball field in the northern part of the state became a minor league ballpark.
"Where the first season hit the pavement from Colorado to New Mexico to Tennessee, this season moves (mostly) eastward to North Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York City — dropping in everywhere from a funeral home to an electronics superstore," per the production notes.
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Showrunner and executive producer Tony Tost concludes: “That’s a refreshing element of the show. It’s just matter of fact: Here are some interesting people and some interesting pockets of America.”
How to watch Poker Face Season 2
The first three episodes of Poker Face Season 2 arrive exclusively on Peacock Thursday, May 8. The remaining nine episodes will then premiere weekly on Thursdays from there on out.
All of Season 1 is streaming here.
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!
