Judith Light (‘Poker Face’): Sometimes ‘you just have that instant chemistry, and that was what we had’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“Sometimes you meet people and you just have that instant chemistry, and that was what we had,” reveals three-time Tony winner and multiple Emmy nominee Judith Light about her guest role on Peacock’s murder mystery dramedy “Poker Face.” For our recent webchat she adds, “It is a marvelous, incredible creation, both those characters, S. Epatha Merkerson and mine — Joyce and Irene — are amazing.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
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“Poker Face” was created by Oscar-nominated writer/director Rian Johnson (“Knives Out,” “Glass Onion”), who also serves as co-showrunner alongside producer writer/producer sisters Nora Zuckerman and Lilla Zuckerman. The “case-of-the-week” murder mystery stars Emmy nominee Natasha Lyonne (“Orange is the New Black,” “Russian Doll”) as Charlie Cale, a casino worker on the run from her nefarious bosses. As Charlie tries to stay one step ahead of casino head of security Cliff LeGrand (Emmy nominee Benjamin Bratt) in a cross-country cat-and-mouse game, she becomes inevitably entangled in a mysterious death of a stranger on each stop along the way.
The series harkens back to the classic whodunnits of yesteryear, like Emmy-winning favorites “Columbo” and “Murder, She Wrote” and the more recent comedy-tinged “Monk,” as Charlie finds herself in the thick of the action in every town, truck stop and resting place, solving mysterious murders aided by her uncanny ability to tell when people are lying to her. Lyonne portrays the scrappy amateur detective with her trademark droll wit and sarcasm, alongside a star-studded cast of guest actors including Light, Merkerson, Lil Rey Howery, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tim Blake Nelson, Ron Perlman, Hong Chau, Stephanie Hsu, Nick Nolte, Chole Sevigny, Ellen Barkin and Cherry Jones.
Light features alongside Merkerson in the fifth episode of the show’s freshman season (“Time of the Monkey”), written by Wyatt Cain and Charlie Peppers and directed by Lucky McKee. In the episode, Charlie is working as a janitor at a retirement home where she befriends two old hippies Irene and Joyce. When a new resident suddenly dies, Charlie is on the case to figure out who was behind the suspicious death. It’s a delicious role for Light, who plays wheelchair-bound Irene with a compelling and often amusing menace, as we discover that the two ladies are behind the murder in an act of unbridled vengeance. “I don’t have that kind of bone about revenge or vengeance,” the actress admits about whether her character’s desire for revenge spoke to her on a personal level. “But I know what it feels like to have a relationship fall apart and to be eviscerated by that and to be devastated by it. And what does it take to build yourself back up again and what does it mean to be playing someone who is disabled? To be incapacitated for the rest of your life by someone who you thought had your back is a very devastating and painful and eviscerating experience,” she says. “So, I not only understand it in my head, but I also get it in my gut, and that’s where that stuff lives, you know.”
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