Poker Face: Rian Johnson, Natasha Lyonne Tease Peacock Series’ Future

Poker Face creator Rian Johnson and star Natasha Lyonne teased the future of the show on Peacock. The duo spoke at Deadline’s TV Contender event about more seasons and how the show came together. It’s clear from Johnson’s comments that he credits Lyonne with a lot of Poker Face‘s popularity. Also of note for the show’s creator was the desire to see a story of the week format produced with this mystery trapping. A very normal part of TV viewing now is following a season-long narrative whole some of the individual entries can get lost in the shuffle. Credit Lyonne’s work with her character for keeping audiences coming back to Poker Face for more. Check out what they said about Season 2 right here.

The creator began, “We want to keep doing it and I feel like it is very much built so that there is an overarching story but it’s kind of similar to the story of whether Sam is going to get home on Quantum Leap. It kind of doesn’t matter really, it’s just an engine to be able to keep her on the road and keep her moving and keep doing these little mysteries and having exciting people in them. Our goal is to just keep doing that as long as we can.” 

“I had the idea in my head of wanting to do a case of the week, episodic type show. Something that was kind of like the TV shows I grew up loving like Magnum P.I., Murder, She Wrote and Quantum Leap. I wanted to go back to that versus a show with a mystery that runs across the whole season,” Johnson said. 

“What I realized is that what these shows have in common is they all have an incredibly charismatic star at the center. I’m following the mysteries, sure, but I’m mainly watching to hang out with Peter Falk every week,” he added. “There aren’t that many people out there who can do that today. So when I saw Natasha in Russian Doll, met with her and we became friends, I knew Natasha was someone who could pull this off.”

Visions For Poker Face’s Future!

“Pretty much everything that has to do with Poker Face is Rian’s fault. I was in Puerto Vallarta trying to sleep,” she teased. “Then Rian sent me a documentary on Phil Tippett and we sort of had this vision quest and from there it blossomed into what it was going to become with Nick Nolte and this story of regret and a very catchy title, Orpheus Syndrome, that’s important.

“I think Rian had this idea to tell this story about this man up against technology and what it means to have integrity in the art… It was interesting to watch this story about what it’s like to have regret and I think part of what we’re talking about and part of what Rian’s idea was this sort of Vertigo idea that’s very overt in the episode—even in the score, and everything.”

How long do you think Poker Face will run? Let us know in the comments down below!