Poker Face Season 2 Adds Giancarlo Esposito, Katie Holmes, and Kumail Nanjiani

The cast of Peacock’s critically-acclaimed mystery series Poker Face just expanded its cast, adding a number of big names in as-yet-undisclosed roles for  its second season, which is in production now. The first group of guest stars who will join the mystery-of-the week series include Giancarlo Esposito (Better Call Saul, Bob Roberts), Katie Holmes (Batman Begins, Ray Donovan), Gaby Hoffmann (Transparent, Eric) and Kumail Nanjiani (Eternals, Only Murders in the Building). It’s likely at least one or two of those folks will turn out to be killers.

Poker Face, which comes from creator Rian Johnson, centers on Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie, whose detective-TV-show super power is her ability to know when someone is lying. Everywhere she goes, there’s a bizarre new mystery that only she can seem to crack.

“Next year, we’ll figure out a way, like this season, to make it all fresh,” Johnson said in a recent interview. “Safe to say, it won’t be a repeat of Season 1.” Lyonne added with a laugh, “I mean, I can’t tell you anything because it doesn’t exist yet. But it’ll be very important to both of us that the quality of the work stays high. No one will phone it in.” Johnson continued, “We know structurally that we want to very much keep this all in episodic case-of-the-week world.”

Poker Face is T-Street’s two-time Academy Award nominee Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman’s first television series and is produced by MRC, along with multiple Emmy nominated executive producer and star Natasha Lyonne, under her production banner Animal Pictures.   

Johnson is the creator, writer, director, and executive producer — but doesn’t hold the “showrunner” title, which goes to Tony Tost. Tost (Damnation, Americana) serves as showrunner and executive producer for Season 2 alongside executive producers Rian Johnson, Ram Bergman, Natasha Lyonne, Nena Rodrigue, Adam Arkin, Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman.    

Season one premiered on Peacock in January 2023 to rave reviews and quickly became certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. The show’s first season received four Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Natasha Lyonne, and garnered Peacock its first Emmy win for Judith Light’s Outstanding guest actress performance in a comedy series. 

The first season if Poker Face is now streaming on Peacock.