during the session from Report feature on me peacockUpcoming delightful mystery series poker face-We got a lot more creative material Rian Johnson And a star Natasha Lyonne which can fit comfortably. So as a bonus, we bring you some highlights from the rest of our conversation.
Last week, we had Johnson goes deeper About the fun and challenges of giving Charlie Cale’s character Leon the ability to tell when someone is lying. This is where we open things up with the actress, who explains, “I hate bullshit. Yeah, I love whatever bullshit it is.”
What is the difference between these two?
bullshit Is a common human being wholly suck, or lie. bullshit shoots shit, makes jokes; nonsense talk. Silly concepts floating around and killing time.
Earlier, you seemed so surprised to hear that every other person you met called you one of the smartest people they had ever met.
Alan, but I’m terrible at shapes. If you give me a simple children’s jigsaw puzzle, I will put the edges in the middle of the puzzle. I’m lost. I don’t know. I am completely self-made. So I am very meticulous about the subjects that interest me. And with those street smarts, I can collect a healthy amount of stuff quite seamlessly. I think part of what they’re experiencing is that I did so much acidity in my early life that I could process scientific, artistic, personal, and philosophical concepts as organically, because I saw evidence of them almost as much as I watched the world divide in on itself while in my teens I was reading Nietzsche. or watched Clockwork Orange Many times when I was a kid. I do not know what to say to you. I like that. Because it is the quality trait that I value most. Besides humor, which is really my favorite thing.
The persona that you have now in front of the camera, and somewhat off camera, is really a lot different than how you presented yourself in those early years. You’re older now, but any of the Joe Pesci/Andrew Dice Clay stuff jokes about a way to let you out more than you previously could? Are some of them affected?
I don’t know. I think my voice has changed in many ways. Honestly, it scares me. I’m not surprised. I just turn into Harvey Fierstein/Elizabeth Ashley against my will, because I smoke too much. There was that Jay Leno bit that went viral recently, and I see myself in that and I’m like, Oh my God, this is what I looked like before all those cigarettes. But I do remember my accent being an issue for Tamara Jenkins, Woody Allen, and Jimmy Babbitt. It was always a problem. There was a way out in the casting New York City Whoever showed me this weird old video of the New York actors auditioning for him and making him, and it was like me and DiCaprio and Phil Seymour Hoffman and Uma Thurman. And I was so flattered to be in that group. But, like, Uma Thurman comes along and she’s a 17-year-old goddess. And here I am in my mock turtleneck, my hair looking like it hasn’t been combed in a year, and I’m striking out with the thickest New York accent you’ve ever seen. I’m talking about you someone on the lunch line. Jesus Christ! No wonder I didn’t get these jobs! But are you testing me like I have a New York accent now?
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale, Audrey Corsa as Rebecca in ‘poker face“.
Sarah Schatz / Peacock
Your tone now during our conversation is much less clear than it is in your roles.
I guess that’s the way I talk. I also think my accent is less pronounced in poker face who in Russian doll. But I’m terrified of public speaking. Talk shows terrify me. So I think when I’m afraid, my tone becomes more intense. In both the first season and the second season of Russian doll, I spent a lot of time editing trying to reduce my accent, because I hate it. I find it very annoying but I think I’m getting old my dear. But when I’m stressed, I get more New York to protect myself from strangers.
Clea DuVall said one of the reasons you became friends was because at the time, you both felt like you didn’t fit in with what the business wanted from young women. How were those years?
Totally unusual really. We are both orphans, so we really have each other. At Clea’s wedding, I’m the best man, or like the father who gives her away. For us to sift through this evolution from the ’90s also independents into showrunners, creators, writers, and directors is pretty outrageous. We are both dark horses and so dark that it makes absolutely no sense. Back in the ’90s, I think we were a couple of terrible places. I see these pictures of us when we were teenagers, and we smoke so much, nobody knows what to do with us. And we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. It was just, we were weird. They knew it. We knew that. And I felt bad all the time. I think the distortion was, Maybe something is off outside. And that really bothers you as a young woman. But I think the truth is that something was wrong with us. For example, our insides were completely overloaded to really make sense in these narrow standards. Weirdly, the times have caught up with us. If we were teenagers now, we’d be crushing. We’ll be great kids. This generation really likes the outsider to be a main event. Ours, if you remember, was as cookie-cutter as cookie-cutter can be—like, “Bring on the Aryan Nation!” It was a dark time to be a weirdo in the entertainment world. I am so grateful to witness this change. Also, because I think it’s dreadfully boring. Honey, they’ll never be as good as Joan Blondell. So keep moving.
Ryan, Clea and Chloe [Sevigny] Everyone says you never look happier than when you’re directing. Would you say that’s fair?
Yes, it makes me feel like Bob Fosse. And I do mean speed. I love having an orchestra. I love being a bandleader. And I think my life of eccentricity has prepared me well, to really enjoy witnessing the intensity of the situation. And it’s very natural for me, since I’ve been in groups since I was five, to feel in control of all the elements. I love the actors. I am obsessed with aesthetics. I’m such a big movie buff that I really understand shots and blocking. Watching it all together, it brings to my soul a deep, deep joy. I feel like my feet are in the right place. And no matter how stressful it is, or people are afraid of the lights or whatever, I really do have a lot of fun. And I feel for the first time that it’s completely busy – like an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I come home tired. I like that it requires your brain to use it to its full potential, in many directions at once. I find it very calming, and like the feeling of white noise coming over my body.
I was obsessed with the movies, like – well, this is weird, but if I actually, for reasons unknown to me, slowly removed all my skin from my body, and you’re curious what I’m made of on the inside, you’d just see a bunch of pictures, glued together from all these movies. classic. And that’s the way I actually still go, despite all those cigarettes, is that the pictures, they don’t get exposed to the negative side of nicotine. So the tar keeps them sticking together. This is what celluloid means. And I love to solve problems. And I love to improvise. And despite my seemingly silly nature, I am an obsessive workaholic, and a meticulous perfectionist. So I like the extreme preparation and precision. I like very clear parameters, and then fill in the frame with as much information as possible. But I actually don’t like lawless anarchy. If you’ve been to my house my bed is always made. I don’t know how to describe it. I only have big hair – this is the best way I can lay it. And I think it could potentially mislead people. But I really, really love directing. All of my heroes are already directors. I love acting. The thing I love about acting is that it’s similar to my job as a musician. I like the idea that Ryan is a composer, and he let me know what part of the song I could play in service of his album. And I want to do it as best I can for him, and that makes me happy to do it. But with the writing and production and the way everything is integrated with directing now, it’s so much fun having pages on set and correcting in real time with the actors, as things get adjusted. I also like obsessively looking at the table and figuring it out. I love being in editing, and feeling when a song or piece of music has landed properly on a sequence to tie it all together is such a fun experience. I feel alive when all of this is happening. And I like not to feel dead inside.