From creator/writerRian Johnson, the Peacock mystery-of-the-week seriesPoker Facefollows Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), who suddenly finds herself in the position of needing to hit the road in her Plymouth Barracuda. Trying to outrun some very dangerous consequences for her actions leads her to a series of encounters and strange crimes that no one is more perfect to handle, as her ability to always be able to determine when someone is lying never fails her.
During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, executive producer Johnson, who’s also a director on the series, talked about howPoker Faceevolved, collaborating with Lyonne, making a TV show versus making a movie, the similarities toColumbo, figuring out how to juggle a possible Season 2 withKnives Out 3, how the different types of mysteries inPoker Faceand theKnives Outmovies hit very different pleasure centers in his brain, how much things might be wrapped up by the end of the season, the insane guest cast, whichKnives Outcast member he’d love to have guest in a future episode, and what he learned from collaborating with a writers’ room. He also talked about his experience directing episodic television, and how he came to do an episode of the gone-too-soon FX seriesTerriers.
Collider: I first spoke to you forBrick, nearly 20 years ago.
RIAN JOHNSON: Oh, my God.
You have certainly had a very interesting career since then. One of the things that I find interesting is that, aside from Poker Face, when it comes to TV, you had previously only directed a few episodes ofBreaking Badand an episode ofTerriers, which as one of the people that absolutely lovedTerriers, that show will always be on a list of shows that were gone far too soon.
JOHNSON: I know, I agree.
How did you end up directing an episode of that series?
JOHNSON: One of my best friends is Ted Griffin, who was the creator of that show. That’s the short answer. That was my first episode of TV that I directed. I think I did that before I did “Fly.” I can’t remember. But anyway, Ted really went to bat for me, actually getting me on that show. It’s funny, Leslye Headland wrote the episode that I directed. Leslye is now doing aStar Wars show, and didRussian Dollwith Natasha [Lyonne], so it’s a small world. The short answer is my buddy Ted Griffin went to bat for me and got me on that series, and working with Michael [Raymond-James] and Donal [Logue] was incredible.
If there had been another season, would you have wanted to direct more?
JOHNSON: Oh, God, yeah. In a heartbeat.
After having that taste of what it’s like to be an episodic director of TV, were you like, “You know, I think I’m just going to create my own show, so that I can direct it and establish the tone, and not have to do this episodic directing gig again”?
JOHNSON: Honestly, just hopping in and directing episodic, and I haven’t done much – I didTerriersand three episodes ofBreaking Bad– was heaven. It was getting to pop in and just do the fun part because you’re handed a perfect script. You get to show up and prep and direct and work with the great actors, but all the heavy lifting of actually creating the thing is done by the creators. So, I loved it. My priority has always been movies, and that has taken up all of my time. Whenever I’ve had opportunities to direct other episodic stuff, it’s just been a time issue. With [Poker Face], it’s a whole different deal, actually creating the show. I really dove into this show, as if it were one of my movies. I really took creative ownership of it, and within that context, got to collaborate with some really talented writers and directors. We had two great showrunners, Lilla and Nora Zuckerman, that really showed me the ropes. But it was a whole different deal, as opposed to directing episodic, where you’re just trying to get what the creator wants on the screen. With this, it felt more like making one of my movies.
By the time you were having conversations with Natasha Lyonne about this, how formed was all of it? Did you have an idea and a character, and then she contributed to that? How much was established, when you guys started talking about it?
JOHNSON: There was virtually nothing. The only thing I had was, “It’s a procedural case of the week show starring you, what do you think?” We sat down to dinner, we had steak and fries, we bullshitted back and forth and came up with some different stuff, and then I went away and wrote. She has absolutely been a creative partner in this, from before the beginning. This is really a house that the two of us built together. Even once it was on the page, figuring out how to play Charlie and what makes that character unique and special, it’s really been a collaboration with Natasha from the word go.
Were there things that she specifically brought to the character, that you hadn’t even thought about, that made it so specifically and uniquely suited to her? It really does feel like there couldn’t be a more perfect character for her?
JOHNSON: That makes me happy. My intent, from the beginning, was to make this show like a perfectly tailored suit for her. But at the same time, and this goes back to the shows I grew up watching, when I think about, for instance,Columbo, I don’t really watchColumbofor the mysteries. You watch it to hang out with Peter Falk, really. And so, the notion was that we’re constructing a character where the whole draw of the show is that you want to come back every week and hang out with her and see her win. Part of what Natasha and I found, as we were figuring this character out, and this was a big revelation for Natasha, was that, “Oh, this character really likes people. That’s a new thing for me. This is a whole new type of character that I’ve never played before.” There’s something that we discovered in the mixture of that essentially curious about people and likes them sunniness combined with the natural, hard-edged thing that Natasha brings to it. You put those two things together, and I just fell in love with the character, as I saw it come to life. That’s really when I thought, “I think we might really have something here.”
When it comes to making a TV show versus making a movie, do you feel a sense of freedom in making a 10-episode series that you don’t have when making a movie? How does it work with a show this, when you are constantly in a different location with different characters and different situations?
JOHNSON: It feels freeing because you have less time and that, to me, means there’s less time to get precious about stuff. You’ve really gotta make it work. You’ve gotta find the quickest path between two points and tell your story, as clearly as possible. That, to me, is the aspect of it that I really loved. It makes you boil it down to the essentials. It’s interesting, though, because there were 10 different episodes and they’re each a little mini movie, that did give a certain amount of freedom because it was like, “Oh, we can try this, and this, and this, and this, and that, and this,” and that felt really fun. At the same time, it’s not like, “Oh, we have a season’s worth of material to get this right.” Every episode had to work as a movie. Every episode had to be tight and had to introduce the characters, and then bring them to a satisfying, closed ending, and that’s a hard thing to do. I was grateful to have a great writers’ room full of folks to collaborate with on that.
I absolutely love this show and everything about it. Assuming the show is a hit and everyone reacts to it the same way I did, are you hoping to do a Season 2? Have you figured out how to juggle the scheduling and timing with doingKnives Out 3?
JOHNSON: That, I’m figuring out. That’s the golden question. The big answer is yes. Natasha and I constructed this engine to keep running. I see endless creative possibilities. We have dozens of pitches left on the whiteboard, any one of which would be a great episode. We can keep going with this, and hopefully keep it fresh and surprising and fun. The element of time being a finite element, that’s something all of us bump up against in life, isn’t it? But I wanna work it out. I want to figure out how to do it because I really love it, and we will. First things first, let’s put the show out there, and hopefully, there are people like us out there.
When did you realize that you really dug this whole mystery thing, and thatKnives Outwasn’t going to be enough, but you instead wanted to set up a series ofKnives Outmovies, and you wanted to do this TV show? When did you know that you really wanted to keep this mystery train going?
JOHNSON: Like Daniel Plainview, “Why don’t I own this?” It’s weird, I know this’ll sound disingenuous, but it almost feels like a coincidence to me that these two things are mysteries. To me, they came from very different tracks of thought.Knives OutandGlass Onion, those were very much drawn from the whodunnit tradition of Agatha Christie. It seems like a wonky distinction, but the fact that this is very much drawn from the how- catch-‘em mode of shows, such asColumbo. To me, it’s a whole different animal, and it’s a whole different muscle of the brain. Also, withPoker Face, I just wanted to make a great TV show. I wanted to make a procedural. I wanted to make something that repeats the same pattern, every week., but still surprises you, in that context. The joy of coming back and seeing your friend every episode, which is a very TV-centric pleasure, I wanted to fully embrace that and deliver that. They’re both mysteries, but they hit very different pleasure centers in my brain.
How did the decision to make 10 episodes come about? Was that dictated by budget? Was that just a number that felt like the right number? Would you want to keep doing 10 episodes per season?
JOHNSON: It was a balance of budget, schedule, and the amount of time that it takes to make the show. Who knows, going forward. It felt like a comfortable number. This is a very, very difficult show to make. The fact that we have no recurring cast, except for Natasha, and there are no standing sets, episode-to-episode, our production designer, Judy Rhee, had to design an entirely new movie, every single episode, which is very labor-intensive. I think we would all start dropping dead, if we tried to make more than 10 in a row. Also, my hope is that, if we can keep this thing going, to accumulate enough of them so that there’s a library of these things, and the same way that I went back and binged a lot of those old shows during the pandemic, people will one day be able to open up thePoker Facefolder and just pop through and click their favorite episodes. That’s the hope.
You’ve said that, at the end of the season, you go back a bit to what happens in the pilot. Does that get fully resolved, or will that continue to be a throughline in possible future seasons?
JOHNSON: Well, that would be telling, and I don’t wanna spoil anything. It’s a little bit of a pleasant surprise, in terms of how it ends up going, so I don’t wanna totally spoil it. I’ll say that the sterling of it all is definitely not the thing that the show is gonna be for its whole life. In that way, the ending of the season does wrap up that thread a bit, but projects forward, so that the show can keep doing what it does. That’s very vague.
And yet helpful.
JOHNSON: All will be revealed, very soon.
This guest cast is insane. Did you get everyone wanted to get? Was there anyone you couldn’t work out scheduling with? Do you have a list of folks that you still have cool episodes or character possibilities for?
JOHNSON: Yeah. The joy of doing this, in that way, similar toGlass OnionandKnives Out, is just the sheer amount of actors that we get to work with, over the course of the season. Yes, there are so many people that I would love to just pull into one of these. One that I’ve now said in a couple of interviews, so I’m sure this will go back to her and she’ll text me, probably very annoyed, is that I would love to convince my friend Jamie Lee Curtis to come in and do one. Jamie’s first job on TV was in aColumboepisode, so it would be a full circle thing. But the possibilities of casting and the notion of people who will delight you, seeing them show up and match wits with Natasha, feels like an endless landscape, in a way.
You talked about having this experience with showrunners and with a writers’ room, and obviously, you learn something from every project you do, so what was it like to learn from a collective like that and to really have that collaboration that you don’t get on a movie?
JOHNSON: It was so nice. It’s so lonely, writing a movie, but I still love it. I’m never gonna get away from movies. That’s always going to be the thing that I love most, but I really did enjoy this experience. To be able to work with the Zucks and all of our writers, and to be able to have a truly collaborative experience and still feel like I had creative ownership over it, and still feel like that group was there to collaborate, you’ve got the best of both worlds, of collaboration and still really being able to create something that I feel as proud of and as much ownership over as my movies. It was pretty cool. Also, you get to make small talk with people and have lunch together, which is nice.
Does it make you more focused, or does it feel like you have to steer it back to actually focusing on the subject at hand?
JOHNSON: You’ve gotta do a little more steering, but the reality is, if I made an honest comparison of the productivity level of a writers’ room versus the productivity level of me sitting on my couch, supposedly writing by myself, there’s no comparison. It’s much more efficient to have a group of people, who at least you know you’re all supposed to be working and accomplishing something.
