Natasha Lyonne Wants Entertainment to Embrace the Unknown

Natasha Lyonne has written, directed, produced, and starred in several boundary-breaking projects, from the time-warping drama Russian Doll to the avant-mystery procedural Poker Face. But when Marie Claire editor-in-chief Nikki Ogunnaike asks the multi-hyphenate what she'd want to tell Hollywood's leading executives onstage at Power Play on May 15, the star adamantly asks for a change in direction. She doesn't want to re-hash her successful projects—or see anyone else re-treading the same path. "What we should all want as a community is what we don't know yet," she says.

Onstage at the St. Regis Atlanta, Lyonne dove into the path she's forging away from the body of work since been building since she was four years old and an extra on Nora Ephron's Heartburn. A personal odyssey into physics, science, and philosophy—sparked by reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything—eventually led her to start Asteria Studios: a film and animation studio based on a proprietary (and as Lyonne puts it, "ethical") AI model. Her goal runs counter to headlines you may have read about artificial intelligence tech.

"It was really about putting the artists first and figuring out a way to not have job displacement," she explains. Rather than replacing jobs with automated algorithms and models, "We're trying to help protect and sort of plant a flag for some guardrails in this area, in this small way. This is a problem that is sweeping in every industry."

Her effort starts with the upcoming movie Uncanny Valley, a video game-centric adventure in production with filmmaker Brit Marling and computer scientist Jaron Lanier. Lyonne didn't divulge too many details, but this is the gist: "It's a very personal human story about this moment we're in that's somewhat hysterical, but a big action movie. And by putting a teenage girl at the center of it and the big adventure movie, maybe you have some space to open up conversations [about AI] in a way."

The subject matter is lightyears away from her current stint as a wisecracking detective on Poker Face, but she wears many of the same behind-the-scenes hats to bring it to life. Asked which of her creative roles most scratches her creative itch, Lyonne couldn't narrow it down. In today's moviemaking economy, she almost has to do every job.

"I do it all because I pay the cost of being the boss. It's a hugely collaborative art form," she says. "I'm never doing it alone, but with other inspired people: We come up with ideas, bring them to life, write them, produce them, or write them, cast them. I'm not the editor, but I sit every day in the edit. I'm not the marketing department, but every single thing goes through us."

However Lyonne's next project is received when it hits theaters, she won't be reading the reviews. The actress finds the most power in the process than in the final cut audiences judge. "I think freedom is almost like the freedom to exist and trust it. The results are none of my business. I stay in process," she explains. "I keep my head down, do my best, and try to, in whatever projects I have, bring everybody to the table."

As a storyteller, she sees her role as helping others be seen—and when that box is checked, her job is done to satisfaction. "I can't necessarily change the whole world, but I can just do little things or I can write about things that maybe other people wouldn't. If I've learned one thing in this life, [it's that] you've just got to put pen to paper."

There's still another bullet point Lyonne has considered adding to her ever-expanding résumé. "I have not yet gotten into lifestyle, but I'm thinking about starting a brand," she says. She references her friend Reese Witherspoon, founder of the production company Hello Sunshine, as inspiration. But if she does venture from film productions into products, Lyonne will do it her way: "Hello, Darkness might suit me," she laughs.