poker face, Rian Johnson’s drama series starring Natasha Lyonne as the human bullsh*t detector was not intended to be a limited series and the knife out The filmmaker said there are “endless possibilities” to continue the success.
Lyonne plays Charlie, an effortlessly cool, cheap beer drinker with a supernatural ability to solve crimes. After a casino boss seeks her out to use her skills for nefarious purposes, Charlie goes on the run and becomes involved in more crimes.
Johnson says it’s more of a how-to-catch-em than a murder mystery because crime is the focus of each episode.
But while there’s a storyline running through the ten-episode season, one involving Benjamin Bratt’s security expert, it’s ostensibly a procedure.
Lyonne said she loved characters like Peter Falk’s columboElliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe in The long goodbye and Andy Sipowicz by Dennis Franz in NYPD blue.
Johnson added that he was inspired by shows like Columbo, Magnum PI, Rockford files and quantum leap, episodic case-of-the-week stories centered around a “charismatic character.”
Speaking on NBCUniversal’s TCA press tour, Lyonne said that Charlie “floats over a situation trying to solve a mystery, but is also an everyman who has his nose to the grindstone and figures out the sounds of the road.”
Johnson has directed television episodes, including terrier and breaking Badbut that this was “pretty much my first rodeo” in terms of making a series and he “had a blast” particularly enjoying the pace of the storytelling.
With success, he wants it to continue. “It was definitely not conceived as a limited series, it was conceived as something that has the architecture to go on. We’re going to bring that out to see if people like it, step by step. There are endless stories to tell. As people watch more and realize how different each episode is… it’s a hodgepodge of possibilities of different worlds to delve into in each episode, and whole new mysteries in each episode. For me, the possibilities are endless.”
Lyonne was more cautious but added that her character is “timeless” and “we love working together. “I think we’re just having fun with the show coming out. We’re enjoying the ride,” she added.
The series, which premieres its first four episodes on January 26th on Peacock, has a smashing cast of guest stars including Adrien Brody, Angel Desai, Audrey Corsa, Benjamin Bratt, Brandon Michael Hall, Charles Melton, Chelsea Frei, Cherry Jones and Chloë Sevigny, Clea DuVall, Colton Ryan, Danielle MacDonald, Dascha Polanco, David Castañeda, Ellen Barkin, Hong Chau, Jasmine Aiyana Garvin, Jameela Jamil, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Judith Light, Leslie Silva, Luis Guzmán, Megan Suri, Niall Cunningham, Nicholas Cirillo, Nick Nolte, Reed Birney, Rhea Perlman, Ron Perlman, Rowan Blanchard, S. Epatha Merkerson, Shane Paul McGhie, Simon Helberg, Stephanie Hsu, Tim Blake Nelson, and Tim Meadows.
Johnson and Lyonne are executive producers on Poker Face alongside Ram Bergman, Nora Zuckerman, Lilla Zuckerman, Nena Rodrigue and Iain B. Macdonald. The Zuckermans are serving as showrunners, and Maya Rudolph and Danielle Renfrew Behrens are co-executive producers. The series comes from T-Street and MRC Television.