Natasha Lyonne is using this moment in her career to reframe what it means to be an actor, filmmaker and futurist all at once. As she steps back from leading Peacock’s Poker Face after two acclaimed seasons, she is simultaneously leaning into directing, building an AI-focused studio and pushing herself to make the movies she has been carrying around in her head for years.
Life after ‘Poker Face’
Lyonne describes Poker Face as a defining creative chapter, praising its case‑of‑the‑week structure and the freedom it gave her to shape Charlie as a scruffy, morally driven human lie detector. Even as the series ends at Peacock, she talks about the character and world as something she could “pop back up” in if the show finds a new home, but only after she has directed a film or two. Stepping away, for her, is less an exit than a pause to honor the urgency she feels around making movies while she still can.
AI as tool and warning
Lyonne has become one of the most visible voices in Hollywood’s AI conversation, co‑founding Asteria Film Co. to experiment with what she calls “copyright‑clean” or “clean” AI. With her upcoming feature Uncanny Valley, she is treating AI more like an advanced version of green screen: a way to expand the canvas of independent filmmaking without replacing department heads or artists. At the same time, she repeatedly stresses the need for guardrails, calling for stronger protections for performers, writers and crews as the technology accelerates.
Making movies as a life project
For Lyonne, movies remain “lifeblood,” the thing she returns to no matter how the industry shifts. She talks about each project taking years from first idea to final cut, and about wanting to use AI only insofar as it buys time and creative freedom rather than simply cutting costs. In interviews, she frames this phase as a race against the clock: an insistence on getting personal, idiosyncratic films made before the business or technology moves on without them.