“Kind of a lone wolf, who is somebody who is really, I guess, sort of floating above a situation, sort of trying to crack a riddle of some sort,” she says, “but also very much an everyman who’s really sort of got their nose to the grindstone and is sort of figuring out the sounds of the streets. “
As for the “Columbo” question, Lyonne says, “I have a great love of Peter Falk from all the Cassavetes [films] and ‘Wings of Desire.’”
For Johnson’s part, “the thing that got me really excited about it at the start was the idea of doing a truly episodic case of the week mystery show, like the kind of stuff I used to watch constantly when I was sitting in front of the TV as a kid. So yes, ‘Columbo,’ but ‘Magnum P.I.,’ ‘The Rockford Files,’ but also ‘Quantum Leap,’ all those shows where what I was doing was just watching daily reruns. I had no idea what order they were in. And that was part of the pleasure of it.”
The key ingredient in those was a central charismatic character. “as much as those shows are mysteries, what really brings you back each week is you want to hang out with the main character. They’re really “hang out” shows. When I saw Natasha in ‘Russian Doll,’ I thought here is somebody who has the presence and the charisma on the screen that I would just want to come back and be with her every week and see her win.”
Unlike his popular work in “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion,” Johnson says these mysteries are not whodunnits. “These are ‘howcatchems.’ These are modeled in that way after ‘Columbo,’ where you show the killing and then it’s about Natasha versus the guest star and how they’re going to take them down. “
The first four episodes of “Poker Face” premiere today; the rest will roll out on subsequent Thursdays through March 9.