Poker Face Writers Talk Being "Starstruck" Over Everything Everywhere All at Once Star Stephanie Hsu

By Jamie Jirak

There were some familiar faces in the latest episode of Poker Face, "Escape From Shit Mountain." The episode saw Natasha Lyonne interacting with frequent Rian Johnson collaborator Joseph Gordon-Levitt as well as The Umbrella Acaemdy's David Castañeda, and Everything Everywhere All at Once star Stephanie Hsu. Of course, Hsu is currently nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars this year thanks to her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once and she'll even be performing the movie's nominated song at the event. Turns out, "Escape From Shit Mountain" was filming around the time  Everything Everywhere All at Once was released, which left the showrunners "starstruck." During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, co-showrunners and the episode's writers, Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman, talked about working with Hsu and their surprising connection to the actor. 

"Now-Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu came to set and we were getting to know each other," Lilla explained. "And we discovered that not only did she grow up in our hometown, but that Stephanie and I had the same high school drama teacher: Jim Bell from Palos Verdes High School, the man who is responsible for turning me into a theater geek and sending me off on this path. Obviously, Stephanie is a superstar now. And we both grew up doing musical theater with the same drama teacher at our high school." 

Nora added, "We had all just gone and seen Everything Everywhere, days before she showed up to set. It was one of the first movies we had seen in theaters since the pandemic, and a bunch of us including Rian had gone to a theater in Poughkeepsie, New York, to see it. So when Stephanie showed up on set, we were just starstruck. We were like, 'I think this [EEAAO] is going to be really big for you.' She was like, 'I don't know, maybe!' So hopefully all the fans will come watch her in this episode, because her performance is just great and she's hilarious." 

During an interview with TV Insider, Castañeda also talked about working with Hsu. 

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"I had no idea," Castañeda explained when asked if he knew about the show's other storylines. "This was the first episode that they shot. So I was coming in and I didn't know they were getting this amazing cast. I started hearing the whispers of like, 'oh yeah, they got Adrien Brody,' and then, you know, we're doing a scene and Adrien Brody walks in. The day before we started shooting the first scene, I went and saw Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I was like, 'oh, what?' And then I realized that's Stephanie!"

The finale of Poker Face drops on Peacock on March 9th. 

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