natasha lyonne shows her cards poker star face on quitting smoking and live to play female extras

You must forgive Natasha Lyonne if she is unhappy on this day. She has actually quit smoking, which is no small feat for anyone who is so synonymous with behavior that there is a instagram story devoted to the coolness of her taking a scuttle.

“I’m putting off saying goodbye,” she tells me, gesturing to the small packet of Nicorette on the coffee table in her East Village condo. “I’m naturally wired for self-harming crutches. I’m happy with an addiction.”

While she admits there are “mountainous” consequences to violent nicotine withdrawal, the benefits actually far outweigh the pain (now no less, she’s telling herself).

“It could be a symptom of being in a decent place without prejudice,” she says of her reason for gradual abandonment. “In a methodology, I try to address that artistically and emotionally. I’m trying to return the favor and insist, ‘OK, maybe I’ll have half of life for a little while longer.’”

“A still decent bet” is understating the rebirth of Lyonne’s profession.

The 43-year-old actress has always been a fixture in the hideout, but her early days in Hollywood were marked by big-name star turns in under-the-radar indies like 1998's "Slums of Beverly Hills" and 1999's "But I'm a Cheerleader." And, sure, she played the wisecracking teen Jessica in "American Pie," but was once overshadowed by the cast's staples (Jason Biggs, Tara Reid, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan and Chris Klein).

Pop culture has yet to discover Lyonne’s unorthodox charms to this day, and that’s partly because she’s finally settled into the driving seat. She co-created the 2019 Netflix hit “Russian Doll,” an existential time-loop comedy that earned Lyonne Emmy nominations for acting and writing. As the jaded offbeat New Yorker Nadia Vulvokov, who begins the series reliving her 36th birthday, “Groundhog Day”-style, Lyonne has bought into the platform to showcase her spectacular range — with the ability to dish out one-liners one time and plumb the depths of her character’s intergenerational trauma the next.

“People like to be receptive to my eccentricity and idiosyncrasy,” she says, lounging on her couch in a rainbow-striped T-shirt and pants. “It’s a real curiosity that when I hit 40, people were like, ‘We’re looking forward to this.’”

Even after her series took off, she says, creators weren’t thrilled about working with her. She thinks she knows why: When men write, teach and direct for a fraction of the zeitgeist-touching entertainment, she suggests, “everyone comes out of the woodwork to be appreciated, ‘How many new roles can we get, offer you?’”

But for a woman, “I think it’s the other way around. When women are doing a lot of these jobs, it can happen, even though all the parts seem intimidating,” she says. “With all the excitement of the first season of ‘Russian Doll,’ Rian was the easiest person to come to me and say, ‘Even though all the parts are, I’m trying to do something for us to achieve together’ — after which he embraced it.”

Lyonne is referring to “poker face,” a shipwreck-of-the-week mystery series from Rian Johnson, the writer-director of “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion.” Though she’s surrounded by scene-stealing guest stars in the Peacock series — including Cut Nolte, Chloë Sevigny, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Hong Chau — “Poker Face” exists as a vehicle to hone in on Lyonne’s hidden magnetism.

She stars as Charlie Cale, whose skills as a real human lie detector put her on the fast track and in orbit of an unusual number of violent deaths. Ratings are still not guaranteed in the era of peak TV, even when high-wattage talent is attached, but “Poker Face” has managed to pull it off — it’s already been renewed for a second season.

“I had this idea of doing something ‘Rockford Recordsdata’ or ‘Columbo’-esque, and I noticed these performances always having a charismatic personality at the heart,” says Johnson. “As soon as I noticed Natasha in ‘Russian Doll,’ I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”

Lyonne radiates an effortlessly cool vibe, so it’s a little bit of a shock when she says her Hollywood persona doesn’t align with her. She is, despite all the pieces, intensely calculated about her craft. She even works with an acting coach, hired by Sam Rockwell, to make sure Charlie doesn’t get confused with Nadia in “Russian Doll” or her varied TV gig as Nicky Nichols in “Orange Is the Unusual Dusky.”

“Because I like big, curly hair and an unusual York accent, you might not think my OCD is kind of stable because it’s miles,” she says. “But I’m obsessed with precision. Despite all the parts, I don’t really make the rest of the stuff really chaotic, complicated or slushy. I like things that are meticulous, almost mathematical.”

She looks around her living room. “There are books for every purpose, and it seems like there’s no appreciation,” Lyonne says, pointing to the shelf behind her. “But other than that, there’s no clutter in the condo.”

Lyonne speaks at length during our interview, barely pausing to take a breath, and her suggestions involve so many twists and turns that it’s hard to keep track of the question she’s answering. At one point, she stops mid-sentence to say, “Good luck editing it down to whatever style this fragment is supposed to be about.”

We’ve barely made it to her living room when Lyonne sits down. “Hey, do you want something to drink? Should I get you some water?” she asks. “Don’t writers love La Croix?” I sheepishly admit that I’m not a fan of soda. We linger over to her in the completely empty kitchen (“When people talk about multihyphenates, I wouldn’t cook in there for myself,” she laughs), and she opens the fridge. “How about something lively? This is pineapple…” she trails off as she grabs a bottle. “No, you don’t need that.” Finally, we settle on a glass of water.

As we compose our methodology back on the couch, Lyonne sips from a “Tonight Expose” mug and picks up where she left off in her creative direction. “I think it’s safe, but smart — to be so meticulous that you can suddenly be sloppy,” she says. “It’s because of an obsessive work ethic that you can just seem so informal and undone.”

Johnson drew comparisons during the filming of “Poker Face.” “Natasha comes in pondering and overthinking every ingredient,” he says. “And then she does a magic trick in the place, the place she knows how to step in front of the camera and stop in the second.”

Lyonne spent much of her early career feeling misunderstood by Hollywood. At some point in her 20s, she found herself in a darker mindset while dealing with publicized struggles that led to drug and alcohol abuse. One of the mountainous comforts of turning 40 is that she no longer feels safe from anyone’s expectations.

“Being in your 40s is so much better than being in your fucking 20s and 30s. It’s so cool. It’s so much sexier,” she says. “My romantic existence is going downhill. So motivated, I was ready to be selected right away. Once you hit your 40s, you ask yourself, ‘Who am I attracted to?’ We’re all going to die, right? So I better make sure I’m in the fleet.”

She admits she doesn’t know how long the cigarette cleanse will last and will forgive herself if she breaks. But for now, it’s been worth the “raw dog” reality as she determines her next chapter.

“I’m taking this time to make sure I’m very light. I’m about to instruct a feature, so I’ve been spending a lot of time reading books and researching what’s changing in price. I’m also working on my favorite scripts and rewriting scripts I’ve already written,” she says. “I don’t know what smoking is going to look like when I’m making money from the interface with all the substances.”

As below, Lyonne brings up the Beach Boys song “I Really Wasn’t Made for These Times.” She says her newfound speed of success runs counter to the thesis of the rock band’s misfit manifesto. “Most of the time, despite all the pieces, I feel proud, ‘Oh, maybe I was the fastest for exactly these times’ — real muse that a woman would be allowed to embody this essentially male diagram in ‘Poker Face.’ And it’s an unspoken ingredient that we’re doing.”

With the exception of the innocent, feminine Megan Bloomfield in “But I’m a Cheerleader,” Lyonne’s film and TV personas skew more “now it’s not easy, unusual guy in York.” She’s now drawn to growing the muse of whoever or whatever she values expressing as an actor.

“I’m unusual in what will undoubtedly be considered a softie, or a womanizer. I’ve been playing macho men all my life. I’ve been stealing from De Niro my entire life,” Lyonne says, citing Al Pacino and Stanley Kubrick as several early influences. But now, she’s asking herself: “What would or wouldn’t be worth making my verbal record a little better? What would or wouldn’t be considered a little more susceptible?”

One example of this is how she finally took a chance, perhaps to host the 47th season finale of “Saturday Evening Live,” a show she has always loved. “The most exciting week of my life,” she remembers it as. “It’s so high octane. They actually get to rip your clothes off and wear something else and then stick braces in your mouth, and you’re out there in the market. And I was like, ‘I was born for this stuff!’”

Between sketches, Lyonne became remarkably relaxed when chatting with longtime friends (Maya Rudolph, Seth Meyers) and even an elderly boyfriend (Fred Armisen). “SNL” producers approached her with the announcement, “You’re supposed to be scared!” She was thrilled to be invited because she felt the pleasure of being part of something bigger than herself. Comedian John Mulaney emailed her suggestions for improving her monologue. Meyers stopped by Studio 8H to present the needs effectively. Tina Fey texted after the show to say “Congratulations.” “To tell you the truth, the easiest ingredient that interests me is this family aspect of this business. My friends are exhausting. I’m not married now and I have kids. They, despite all the pieces, feel a sense of appreciation for my chosen family.”

OK, our time is up. I’m ecstatic to be wrapping up our conversation about this kind of hopeful existence. Lyonne is grounded and centered—and I decide that these nicotine cravings are no match for anyone so resilient and, indeed, tough. I prepare to walk away with my empty water glass in hand, and in a moment that will haunt me for the rest of my life, I probably knock it over.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. The glass falls, in slow motion, to the floor and shatters into 10 million pieces on the living room carpet. There are shards everywhere—large enough to sting and small enough that even a vacuum won’t fix them. I timidly bend down to undo this catastrophic mess, but Lyonne insists that I crawl away from her. “I wish anyone could catch up to her professionally. Attributable to me being a showbiz, meager one!” As I shuffle toward the door, she sighs and says, “That’s going to be the ingredient that makes me smoke again.”

Styling: Cristina Ehrlich/The Handiest Agency; Makeup: Dotti/Assertion Artists; Hair: Ursula Stephen/A-Frame Agency; Nails: First Sterling Soft; Spy 1 (blue shirt): Fat Spy: Gucci; Spy 2 (white swimsuit): Fat Spy: Chanel