Random Rise, Fall, And Rebirth Of Natasha Lyonne (15 items)

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  (#1) She Was A Child Actor And Model 

  Lyonne has been an actress since the mid-1980s when she appeared in Heartburn and Pee-wee's Playhouse. She says she doesn't remember why she initially pursued an acting career. Lyonne told Esquire her family left the country after her Playhouse appearance. However, she continued to act:

  From eight to 10 years old, we lived in Israel. Whatever those years are prior, there was already a whole thing happening in my child-actor career, and when we came back, I was still doing all that stuff. I even made movies in Israel, in Hebrew…

  I think that so much of why I dropped out in my success - aside from [dependency] - was a response to "What is this thing?" What is this thing that I was unwittingly signed up for? How did this become my life, and is this actually aligned with my interests?
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  (#2) She Was Kicked Out Of High School For Selling Weed

  Lyonne was expelled from her private Jewish high school for selling pot to her peers. She told Esquire that she engaged in this activity because it helped her fit in after feeling like an outcast:

  It was very shocking when I got to a yeshiva on the Upper East Side as a scholarship kid, and suddenly I was this outcast who was broke, who was from a single-parent home. The big houses and cars were gone, and it was my mother and I sharing an apartment, and no one wanted to be friends with me. Well, if I'm not invited to your parties, I'll just make my own party on the stoop with a bunch of other misfit teenagers in the neighborhood.
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  (#3) She Went Underground In The Early 2000s

  Lyonne was mentioned occasionally on gossip websites during her lowest points. However, her meltdowns were nowhere near as public as they would have been in the age of social networking. 

  Lyonne assured Broadly her career would have suffered had she been on social media at her worst: 

  I spent a lot of those years pretty underground; I wasn’t spending it clubbing. I’m grateful there was no social media [then]. Lord only knows what I would have been tweeting and Instagramming back in the day. It could have been really off the charts. It was definitely a challenging and harrowing time, not something to experience in the public eye.
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  (#4) She Was Charged With DUI In 2001

  In 2001, Lyonne was charged with driving under the influence in Miami Beach. She ran into a sign and a bush outside the Fontainebleau Hotel. No one was hurt, but she left the scene, which put her in even more trouble. 

  Lyonne reportedly told the officer, "I’m a movie star. Can I talk to my entertainment lawyer?"

  According to Entertainment Weekly, Lyonne was put on probation for six months. She also received a license suspension, community service hours and had to pay court costs and a $1,000 fine. 
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  (#5) She Starred In Cult Classics Like 'But I'm A Cheerleader'

  One of Lyonne's cult favorites is the movie But I'm A Cheerleader. It portrayed an adolescent lesbian relationship and underscored common challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ population. Lyonne starred in the film with Clea Duvall.

  During an interview about her career with the Los Angeles Times, Lyonne discussed the extended shelf-life of the film: 

  So many people are so obsessed with being liked, and it's so risky to not be popular or screen-grabbable at all times. That can be a real bummer for the arts. You need ideas that take risks and feel a little bit crazy. One of the joys of being around for so long is I can really see how movies like But I'm a Cheerleader really found its legs - even more so 20 years later. The movies that make insane, original choices end up having the most serious legs.
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  (#6) She Got Mainstream Attention After 'American Pie,' But She Doesn't Love It

  Even though American Pie was a huge movie that jump-started a wave of teen comedies in the late '90s and early 2000s, Lyonne isn't sure how she feels about her involvement. She explained her conflicting views to the Los Angeles Times:

  I always had mixed feelings about this movie. It was definitely the movie that made me realize that as a long-term actor you have to slip in some studio pictures if you want to keep doing the independent stuff. It gave me so many legs to be a known commodity, which I'm very grateful to, but on the other hand, I think it's too mainstream for my sensibilities.

  I don't identify with that experience at all. I did not then, and I still don't. It's a very suburban white male trip. I had a hard time relating. It's not a movie I would watch, basically. It feels like a movie for the popular kids at school, of which I am not one. Looking back now I can see its particular quirk and what made it a success.
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  (#7) She Was Evicted From Her Apartment After Complaints From Neighbors

  In December 2004, Lyonne clashed with her landlord, actor Michael Rappaport. After numerous complaints from neighbors about her hard-partying ways, Rappaport evicted her from the Gramercy Park apartment. The place was in complete disarray with broken glass and trash everywhere. 

  After the eviction, Lyonne was reportedly homeless. However, her father told the Today Show she owned a co-op where she could stay. Lyonne was also still dealing with legal troubles. After missing a court appearance, a warrant was issued, and she was forced to turn herself in. 
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  (#8) She Pushed Boundaries On The Set Of 'Blade: Trinity'

  According to Patton Oswalt, one of Lyonne's co-stars in the vampire superhero film Blade: Trinity, she was an interesting presence on the set of the film. She was still struggling with various issues at the time. Oswalt told the AV Club:

  Natasha Lyonne was on that set, and she was going through some kind of mental breakdown. Wesley [Snipes] is all boundaries, and she has no boundaries. She played a blind computer expert. So the first scene they had together, she put her hand right on his face, and he just recoiled. It was awesome.
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  (#9) She Suffered Serious Health Complications In 2005

  Lyonne fell ill in 2005. She checked into Beth Israel Hospital in New York with hepatitis C, a heart infection, and a collapsed lung. At the time, she was also undergoing methadone treatment for her addiction. In 2015, she told Esquire:

  My body, I was done with it. It wasn't like I was making decisions based on "Oh, this is me partying this weekend, and then I'll get back to life." I was done, checked out, and then shocked and disappointed to find that I was still kicking and gonna have to get it back together again. I just did not expect to return from it.
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  (#10) 'Orange Is the New Black' Brought Her Back From The Edge

  After spending close to a decade dealing with her demons, Lyonne began a career resurgence with her role as Nicky Nichols in Orange Is the New Black. She discussed the way the show revitalized her career with the Los Angeles Times:

  It really gave me a full second leg. There had been a lot of things that were slowly bringing me back from the edge. Doing theater was laying a foundation for reclaiming my passion - and relevance - for acting. I had confused it with being this dark experience because of how it had ended the first time.

  When Orange Is the New Black came along, I was ready to be back at work. I felt like the part had so much I could sink my teeth into, especially in terms of being the '70s male actor I've always dreamed of being.
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  (#11) 'Orange Is the New Black' Made Her Grateful She Never Spent Time In Prison

  Unlike her character on Orange Is the New Black, Lyonne was never incarcerated for an extended period - something for which she told Rolling Stone she is grateful. Lyonne admits that she definitely would have spent periods in prison if it weren't for her ability to hire an impressive lawyer. She said: 

  In my experience of living - for a time - in the underbelly of society, I spent a lot of time in various holding cells. As wild as I was, when the cops show up, and suddenly you’re being handcuffed, it’s so deeply shocking and terrifying, the loss of freedom. I don’t want to make myself off as tougher than I am. I was never put in the prison system, which frankly would not have happened if I wasn’t some actress with a fancy attorney.
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  (#12) She Had Heart Surgery In 2012

  After five years of sobriety, Lyonne had heart surgery. Her character on Orange Is the New Black had the same procedure, and Lyonne used her real scar with no added prosthetics. Lyonne admits she's not proud she could rely on her personal experience in the scene. 

  She told People:

  By no means was that an enjoyable scene for me to play. I had to call on memories of painful feelings. And it was tricky because my experience was so similar but yet so far removed.
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  (#13) 'Orange Is the New Black' Helped Her Rediscover Her Value As An Actress

  At the lowest point in her life, Lyonne thought she was done with acting for good. She struggled with her dependencies and she stopped caring about the profession, or so she thought. She told EW:

  Listen, I did not think I was coming back. So I didn’t really care. When you go as deep into the belly of the beast as I went, there's a whole other world going on and something like show business becomes the dumbest thing on planet Earth.

  Her time on Orange Is the New Black, however, made her feel valuable again. She told the New York Daily News, "It's sort of life-affirming to see where personal experience ends up. Having some usefulness in your day job makes you better, so much more capable to transmit or articulate something."
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  (#14) She Dove Into Her Past With 'Russian Doll'

  The 2019 Netflix show Russian Doll doesn't just feature Lyonne in a starring role - she co-created the series and directed as well. Russian Doll is about a woman named Nadia who is stuck in an infinite loop that forces her to re-live the night of her demise over and over again.

  Lyonne told The Hollywood Reporter, "I think of it as sort of an existential adventure show. I don’t know that there’s really been this show for women just yet. I’m very proud of it and really excited."

  She added to Broadly:

  This show is heavily autobiographical. It’s also heavily fictionalized. It’s almost like a superhero version of me, a person I’d like to be. The person my character is at the end of the show is closer to who I am today. Who she is at the beginning of the show is closer to who I was 15 years ago.
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  (#15) She 'Really, Really Identifies' With Her Character In 'Poker Face'

  Lyonne is a fan of mystery procedurals like Columbo, as is director Rian Johnson. The two decided to collaborate on an updated version of the throwback genre, and the result is the Peacock series Poker Face. In it, Lyonne plays Charlie Cale, a gambler-turned-cocktail waitress with the unique ability to spot whenever someone is lying. Lyonne may not have that near-mystical ability herself, but as she told Rolling Stone, she deeply relates to her character:

  Human beings are complex and going through many things at the same time. Some of which are marveling at the beauty and the poetry of the riddle, and others are just debating how we ended up in such a losing setup to begin with. So inherently, any living, breathing person experiencing sentience is inherently not fine. They're anything but fine. That is the primary lie that I can't stand for. That's why I really, really identify with my friend Charlie.

  She credits her well-known struggles with helping her tapping into the role:

  I would say I am an excellent bullsh*t detector. Thanks to a life that's taken me from skid row to the Chateau Marmont and back again, I really have seen some sh*t. And I guess the gift that gives you is street smarts.

  Critics seem to agree that the part is a perfect fit for her; Poker Face debuted with a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes score.

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