Poker Face’s Charlie Cale has just solved his first case and the man he picked to kill has paid the ultimate price.
Thursday’s series premiere of the crime series Peacock introduced us to Charlie (played by Natasha Lyonne), a Reno cocktail waitress who has a knack for knowing when people are lying. When Charlie’s friend Natalie died, Charlie did some digging and found that Natalie was murdered after detecting what surely appears to be child pornography on a high roller’s laptop, with casino boss Sterling Frost Jr. (guest star Adrien Brody) ordering his execution. to silence her. When Charlie accused Sterling of arranging Natalie’s murder, she was laughed at, but then Charlie spat all about Sterling’s plot to cheat that high roller out of his money in a private poker game, and once she community of players discovers that Sterling’s casino is cheating, goes crazy. it will ruin your business. (A business handed down to him from his powerful father.)
A desperate Sterling ended up taking his own life, throwing himself off a balcony, and soon Charlie was on the run with Sterling’s enforcer, Cliff (Benjamin Bratt), on his tail and Sterling’s father vowing revenge. The premiere gave us a lot to unpack, so we caught up with Brody to discuss Sterling’s (and hers, as an actor) motivations and what could happen to Charlie if Sterling’s father finds her.
You are one of them and you ended up here as Sterling Frost Jr. As an actor, is it more tempting to tackle and do an episode like that? Is that what brought you to this? What attracted me was the opportunity to work with Rian [Johnson] again. We worked together [on the 2008 film The] Brothers Bloom, and it was a wonderful time together. We have kept in touch and I have enjoyed his work immensely and he continues to do a great job and this was just a well written role. My hands are full. I was on Winning Time season 2 and that worked for us. It was also a lot of fun working with Natasha. It’s so strong in the movie or the show. To be honest, it felt like making a little movie.
Sterling conspired with Charlie to scam this high roller at the casino. What did Sterling think of Charlie? He knew she had this gift, but did he really trust her?
I mean, trust? I don’t know how much he really trusts her. You know, sometimes when a pot of gold is that big, you don’t use much common sense. [Laughs] That’s the first thing a scammer knows. The first thing is to attract the brand by giving it the idea that so much is accessible. But he was completely impressed and a little in awe of this ability of hers, and if he could find a way to use it to his advantage, then he would put up with anything, basically.
What was it like playing with Natasha? Sounds like the perfect role for her. She is amazing. She is a good actor, but she is very good in this role. It was a pleasure. It’s like a dance, you know. He has this wonderful ability to play with all these lofty options and yet convey things in a very nuanced and understated, yet believable way. He is a delight and is so lovely to watch and interact with.
Charlie realized what Sterling was up to and threatened to expose him, so he jumped off the balcony. What drove him to this? Did he feel like he couldn’t prove himself to his father?
I think she’s part of it. There’s just a profound lack of self-worth and insecurity that comes from the circumstances she grew up in, not just with her father. Some of the privileges he’s been afforded have done irreparable damage in his developmental years on hers, and now that she’s at an age where she really wants to be taken seriously and take things to the next level, I think it’s a bit to prove it. even himself. The failure and the shame are so big that it’s a bit hari-kari, you know. He can’t find a way out. It’s tragic.
Sterling Jr. may be dead, but his father and guardian Cliff are still looking for Charlie. How worried should she be about Sterling’s father? We haven’t met him yet, but just from that phone call he seems like a fearsome presence.
I’d be pretty worried about him. You would not? [Laughs] A gangster mob boss, a powerful man who runs a casino in Reno who knows all about you, and you just ruined his and his son’s business? I think he would be pretty scared.
