SPOILERS: This submit incorporates particulars in regards to the Poker Face, Season 2 penultimate episode ‘Day of the Iguana’
As Patti Harrison‘s Alex turns into the newest suspected killer on Poker Face, the large position was a very long time coming for the comic.
Whereas discussing her character’s arc within the again half of the Peacock collection’ sophomore season with Deadline, Harrison was shocked to be taught ‘The Massive Pump’ episode director Clea DuVall beneficial her casting because the quirky new good friend of Natasha Lyonne‘s Charlie Cale, years after she was positive she’d “executed such a nasty job” together with her audition for the 2023 pilot.
“Wait, I didn’t know this. What did you hear?” Harrison requested me, following my interview with Lyonne and collection creator Rian Johnson initially of the season.
What I heard from Johnson was they “had sort of toyed a bit bit—and we do some bit with Steve Buscemi‘s Good Buddy on the CB radio—one of many tropes of any such TV is the sidekick, mainly. And we had simply been fascinated with what sort of a personality may work for Charlie for that.”
“Patti got here in and was the Watson to her Holmes,” raved Johnson, as Lyonne famous her casting got here “off a suggestion on the mobile phone from Clea DuVall, who was in the course of directing her episode with Technique Man—to not drop a serious identify.”
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
After she performed Charlie’s sister Emily within the Season 1 finale (and starred reverse Lyonne in 1999’s However I’m a Cheerleader), Johnson referred to DuVall as “the casting whisperer,” explaining, “I found she has this talent, I’d verify in together with her and he or she was identical to, ‘Oh yeah, forged Patti.’ And he or she’s superior.”
Harrison advised me forward of Season 2’s two-part conclusion, “I’m actually studying this from you. Clea! She’s so good. … That’s, like, liquefying my thoughts, physique and soul proper now. That’s so good. I actually simply obtained the e-mail and a proposal. I didn’t audition for it.”
The comic’s thrilling arc within the closing 4 episodes comes after she “was not pleased with my audition” for the Jan. 26, 2023 pilot ‘Lifeless Man’s Hand’. She initially went out for the position of Charlie’s finest good friend and on line casino co-worker Natalie Hill (which went to Dascha Polanco), whose homicide units off the chain of occasions that sends the troubled protagonist on the run, fixing different mysteries throughout the nation.
Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
“I didn’t hear again for, I really feel like years, as a result of from that audition course of, I feel I used to be in lockdown,” she famous. “After which I obtained the supply e-mail, and I used to be like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ And I used to be actually so mortified as a result of it’s my dream to work with Rian Johnson.
“After these first auditions, in my thoughts, I’ve executed such a nasty job that I used to be like, they’re gonna be mad, like, ‘that dumb ass bitch can’t act,’ and I’ll by no means get to have the chance to work with them once more. So, once I obtained the e-mail, I used to be so ecstatic, after which to get to work on the present, I simply sort of dove into it,” added Harrison.
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
Harrison debuted because the awkward entrepreneurial Alex in Season 2’s ninth episode, ‘A New Lease on Demise’, having since confirmed to be a uncommon good friend and ally for Charlie, who’s reluctant to place down roots after being on the run and getting proper with the mob.
Within the penultimate ‘Day of the Iguana’, directed by Ti West, an murderer (Justin Theroux) frames Alex for murdering the groom (Haley Joel Osment) at a marriage she and Charlie are catering. The Lyonne-helmed finale ‘The Finish of the Highway’, accessible to stream July 10 on Peacock, sees the duo on the run from the FBI and the mob as they get to the surprising reality behind who positioned the hit and framed Alex.
