Fans of Peacock’s innovative mystery series Poker Face were shocked by the twist ending to the show’s second season…and even more shocked by the subsequent news that star Natasha Lyonne was leaving the series, with her role set to be taken over by Peter Dinklage. The series was cancelled at Peacock, but is still being shopped to other streamers in the hopes of finding a new home. Collider’s Therese Lacson caught up with Lyonne at the second edition of the Italian Global Series Festival, where they discussed her exit from the series during a roundtable interview.
The series was created by Rian Johnson, who patterned the series off the “howcatchem” formula of the classic detective series Columbo. Lyonne had envisioned it as a fairly small-scale series, like its predecessor, but one that could run almost indefinitely. “I think Rian Johnson and I really thought that we’re going to be making that show forever,” she explained, “but we thought we’re going to be making it forever with him, like you know, writing and directing all of them and probably doing like six episodes, because you know Columbo ran for like 20 years, but a lot of them were also like home movies.”
Columbo starred Peter Falk as the rumpled title detective; each episode opened with a murder, typically with the killer in plain view, and the pleasure of the series came from the dogged Columbo gradually wearing down the killer until finally reaching the correct conclusion. It was originally part of the “wheel series” The NBC Mystery Movie, and rotated with other features like McCloud and McMillan & Wife; thus, no more than eight, and sometimes as few as three, episodes of Columbo were ever released during a single season. Furthermore, it was often a “family affair,” as many of Falk’s friends and associates, including John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands, and Nicholas Colasanto were involved behind or in front of the camera. Lyonne elaborated that she hadn’t expected the series to be as elaborate a production as it turned out to be, which is why she departed. However, she remains optimistic that she will eventually return with Johnson in tow.
“I just don’t know that it really occurred to us that it was gonna be like a procedural for like nine months at the time, and so I actually really would want to see it with, you know,Dinklage, I f***ing love Dinklage and, and I’ve like really hoped that some time between now, and I’m assuming that I’m going to die at about 200 and Rian’s going to die at about 300. So, hopefully in that time, we find our ways, you know, back to each other for like a special TV event or something.”
That’s not the only show she’s hopeful to craft an ending for, eventually: “I always have a fantasy that Russian Doll is gonna find its way back home.”
Collider Exclusive · Taylor Sheridan Universe Quiz Which Taylor Sheridan Show Do You Belong In? Yellowstone · Landman · Tulsa King · Mayor of Kingstown
Four worlds. All of them brutal, complicated, and built on power, loyalty, and the price of survival. Taylor Sheridan doesn’t write heroes — he writes people who do what they have to do and live with the cost. Ten questions will reveal which one of his worlds you were made for.
🤠Yellowstone
🛢️Landman
👑Tulsa King
⚖️Mayor of Kingstown
01
Where does your power come from? In Sheridan’s world, everyone has leverage. The question is what kind.
02
Who do you put first, no matter what? Loyalty in Sheridan’s universe is always absolute — and always costly.
03
Someone crosses a line. How do you respond? Every Sheridan protagonist has a line. What matters is what happens after it’s crossed.
04
Where do you feel most in your element? Sheridan’s worlds are as much about place as they are about people.
05
How do you feel about operating in the grey? Nobody in a Sheridan show has clean hands. The question is how they carry the dirt.
06
What are you actually fighting to hold onto? Every Sheridan character is fighting a war. The real question is what they’re defending.
07
How do you lead? Authority in Sheridan’s world is never given — it’s established, maintained, and constantly tested.
08
Someone new arrives and tries to change how things work. Your reaction? Every Sheridan show has an outsider disrupting an established order. Sometimes that outsider is you.
09
What has your position cost you? Nobody gets to where these characters are without paying for it. The bill is always personal.
10
When it’s over, what do you want people to say? Sheridan’s characters all know the ending is coming. The question is what they leave behind.
Sheridan Has Spoken You Belong In…
The show that claimed the most of your answers is the world you were built for. If two tied, both are shown — you’re complicated enough to straddle two Sheridan universes.
🤠 Yellowstone
🛢️ Landman
👑 Tulsa King
⚖️ Mayor of Kingstown
You are a Dutton — or you might as well be. You understand that some things are worth protecting at any cost, and that the modern world’s indifference to history, to land, to legacy, is not something you’re willing to accept quietly. You lead from the front, you carry your family’s weight without complaint, and when someone threatens what’s yours, you don’t escalate — you finish it. You’re not cruel. But you are absolute. In Yellowstone’s world, that combination of ferocity and loyalty doesn’t make you a villain. It makes you the only thing standing between everything that matters and everyone who wants to take it.
You thrive in the chaos of high-stakes negotiation, where the money is enormous, the margins are thin, and the wrong word in the wrong room can cost everyone everything. You’re a fixer — the person called when a situation is already on fire and needs someone with the nerve to walk into it. West Texas oil country rewards exactly what you are: sharp, adaptable, unsentimental, and absolutely clear-eyed about what people want and what they’ll do to get it. You’re not naive enough to think this world is fair. You’re smart enough to be the one deciding who it’s fair to.
You are a Dwight Manfredi — someone who has served their time, paid their dues, and arrived somewhere unexpected with nothing but their reputation and their wits. You adapt without losing yourself. You build loyalty through respect rather than fear, though you’re not above reminding people that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Tulsa King is for people who are still standing when everyone assumed they’d be finished — who find, in an unfamiliar place, that they’re more capable than the world gave them credit for. You don’t need a throne. You build one, wherever you happen to land.
You carry the weight of a system that is broken by design, and you do it anyway — because someone has to, and because you’re the only one positioned to do it without the whole thing collapsing. Mike McLusky’s world is for people who are comfortable operating where there are no good options, only less catastrophic ones. You speak every language: law enforcement, criminal, political, human. That fluency makes you invaluable and it makes you a target. You’ve made your peace with both. Mayor of Kingstown belongs to people who understand that keeping the peace is not the same as being at peace — and who do the job regardless.
What Is ‘Poker Face’ About?
Lyonne stars in Poker Face as Charlie Cole, a woman with the near-supernatural ability to tell when someone is lying. As the series opens, she’s working as a cocktail waitress; however, when she uses her gift to solve the murder of a friend, the killer, casino boss Sterling Frost Jr. (Adrien Brody) commits suicide, sending Charlie on the run in her vintage Plymouth Barracuda as his gangster father (Ron Perlman) vows vengeance. In each episode, she finds herself in a new location, and invariably becomes entangled in a murder that she solves with her lie-detecting abilities. By season’s end, she finally escapes the senior Frost’s revenge…only to incur the wrath of another crime boss (Rhea Perlman). The second season sees her hunted by the assassin known only as the Iguana, who might just be skilled enough to foil Charlie’s special talent.
Even with Poker Face in her rearview mirror, Lyonne is staying busy. Earlier this year, she guest-starred on the final season of HBO’s Euphoria, and had a supporting role in the Adam Sandler-produced comedy Roommates. Later this year, she’ll star with Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams in Taika Waititi‘s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro‘s Klara and the Sun.
Both seasons of Poker Face are now streaming on Peacock. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates. This interview took place at the 2nd edition of Italian Global Series.
