Rian Johnson is riding high on the critical success of his upcoming feature Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. However, he’s soon going to make his TV debut with Poker Face, a series he directed, wrote, and produced. Described as a modern take on retro mysteries, the series follows detective Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who's working on solving a series of crimes, each one complete with a star-studded cast. In a new interview with Vanity Fair, the director spoke about the episodic format of the series and his experience of making his first TV series.
Given Johnson has garnered a lot of success with his Knives Out franchise, which features Agatha Christie-esque whodunits, another show in a similar vein seems like a good idea. Nonetheless, for each episode of Poker Face the filmmaker went with the ‘howcatchem' format popularized by shows like Columbo. “There’s a lot of reasons I like that format,” Johnson explained. Comparing the new format with previously done whodunit he revealed, “The big one is because I really love the idea of getting great guest stars for every episode, as opposed to the whodunit where you have to juggle five or six suspects to make it satisfying." As for featuring a stellar star cast, he admitted that he "wanted to be able to create a real meal for actors to come in and feast on if they’re going to be the guest star.”
While in past Johnson has directed some popular episodes of the hit series Breaking Bad, he built Poker Face ground up in various roles. “We just had a blast making the show,” said Johnson, further adding that he’d be lucky to “get old” making it. Speculating on the future of the series he wondered, “If we’re allowed to keep going with this, it feels like something that could be endlessly fun to play with.” He further teased an epic conclusion for the series, “I can promise that the finale comes back to the story of the pilot in a way that I think is very satisfying.”
The series features Lyonne as Charlie, and she’ll be joined by an impressive lineup of performers that includes Megan Suri, Colton Ryan, Brandon Michael Hall, Adrien Brody, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ron Perlman, Stephanie Hsu, Nick Nolte, Tim Blake Nelson, Benjamin Bratt, Hong Chau, Lil Rel Howery, Jameela Jamil, Chloë Sevigny, Ellen Barkin, Judith Light, Tim Meadows, K Kallan, Sprague Theobald, David Castañeda, and Danielle Macdonald. Further, rounding off the cast are Dascha Polanco, Nicholas Cirillo, Audrey Corsa, Niall Cunningham, Simon Helberg, S. Epatha Merkerson, Charles Melton, Reed Birney, Hong Chau, Kerry Frances, Rhea Perlman, Rowan Blanchard, Chelsea Frei, Cherry Jones, Luis Guzmán, Clea DuVall, Shane Paul McGhie, Angel Desai, Jasmine Aiyana Garvin, and Leslie Shiva.
Poker Face will arrive on Peacock early next year on Monday, January 23rd, 2023. You can check out the trailer below: