As Patti Harrison‘s Alex becomes the latest suspected killer on Poker Face, the big role was a long time coming for the comedian.
While discussing her character’s arc in the back half of the Peacock series’ sophomore season with Deadline, Harrison was surprised to learn ‘The Big Pump’ episode director Clea DuVall recommended her casting as the quirky new friend of Natasha Lyonne‘s Charlie Cale, years after she was sure she’d “done such a bad job” with her audition for the 2023 pilot.
“Wait, I didn’t know this. What did you hear?” Harrison asked me, following my interview with Lyonne and series creator Rian Johnson at the beginning of the season.
What I heard from Johnson was they “had kind of toyed a little bit—and we do a little bit with Steve Buscemi‘s Good Buddy on the CB radio—one of the tropes of this type of TV is the sidekick, basically. And we had just been thinking about what kind of a character could work for Charlie for that.”
“Patti came in and was the Watson to her Holmes,” raved Johnson, as Lyonne noted her casting came “off a suggestion on the cell phone from Clea DuVall, who was in the middle of directing her episode with Method Man—not to drop a major name.”
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
After she played Charlie’s sister Emily in the Season 1 finale (and starred opposite Lyonne in 1999’s But I’m a Cheerleader), Johnson referred to DuVall as “the casting whisperer,” explaining, “I discovered she has this skill, I would check in with her and she was just like, ‘Oh yeah, cast Patti.’ And she’s awesome.”
Harrison told me ahead of Season 2’s two-part conclusion, “I’m literally learning this from you. Clea! She’s so nice. … That is, like, liquefying my mind, body and soul right now. That is so nice. I really just got the email and an offer. I didn’t audition for it.”
The comedian’s exciting arc in the final four episodes comes after she “was not proud of my audition” for the Jan. 26, 2023 pilot ‘Dead Man’s Hand’. She originally went out for the role of Charlie’s best friend and casino co-worker Natalie Hill (which went to Dascha Polanco), whose murder sets off the chain of events that sends the troubled protagonist on the run, solving other mysteries across the country.
Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
“I didn’t hear back for, I feel like years, because from that audition process, I think I was in lockdown,” she noted. “And then I got the offer email, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ And I was truly so mortified because it’s my dream to work with Rian Johnson.
“After those first auditions, in my mind, I’ve done such a bad job that I was like, they’re gonna be mad, like, ‘that dumb ass bitch can’t act,’ and I’ll never get to have the opportunity to work with them again. So, when I got the email, I was so ecstatic, and then to get to work on the show, I just kind of dove into it,” added Harrison.
Natasha Lyonne as Charlie Cale and Patti Harrison as Alex in ‘Poker Face’ (Ralph Bavaro/Peacock)
Harrison debuted as the awkward entrepreneurial Alex in Season 2’s ninth episode, ‘A New Lease on Death’, having since proven to be a rare friend and ally for Charlie, who is reluctant to put down roots after being on the run and getting right with the mob.
In the penultimate ‘Day of the Iguana’, directed by Ti West, an assassin (Justin Theroux) frames Alex for murdering the groom (Haley Joel Osment) at a wedding she and Charlie are catering. The Lyonne-helmed finale ‘The End of the Road’, available to stream July 10 on Peacock, sees the duo on the run from the FBI and the mob as they get to the shocking truth behind who placed the hit and framed Alex.
