RICCIONE, ITALY – We’ve interviewed Natasha Lyonne before. Multiple times. She’s always seemed exactly what you’d think after decades of talk show appearances, red carpet and junket interviews. She’s been wickedly smart, self-deprecating, stylish and charismatic. On Friday, she appeared as a guest at the 2026 Italian Global Series Festival. She was meant to be the subject of a masterclass conversation including a screening of an episode of the second season of “Poker Face,” which is finally arriving in Europe this month. The event started 40 minutes late, but, hey, it’s Italy, and that’s par the course, right? But after an almost 45-minute adventure with Oscar Cosulich, a moderator Lyonne had little use for beyond attempting to set him up on a date with a woman in the audience, everyone in the room was left puzzled, if not also entertained. We’re not sure whether the native New Yorker had a rough morning, was in the middle of a manic episode, or was putting on a comedy bit.
And, yes, there is video of much of it, but in this case, context matters. And it matters more than the potential knee-jerk reaction to a thirty-second or one-minute segment TMZ or a gossip site throws online.
Throughout the chaotic conversation, essentially a long, extended monologue from the “Russian Doll” star, Lyonne would dip her hand into her purse to grab a makeup swab to wipe sweat off her face (the room had strong air conditioning). She kindly asked the head of the festival, Marco Spagnoli, to fetch her flat water instead of the sparkling water placed by her chair. She could barely stay on topic, but her publicist was there and let the events unfold as they may. And she hinted that all of this may be part of a documentary that someone named Jacamo was filming.
When Cosulich asked her if she really was filming a doc, Lyonne replied, “We sure are, kid. But don’t worry, everyone will get their little consent forms if we ever actually use this part. But Jack, Dion, and Steve, I’m pretty sure that Marco is in anything else. I think nobody else from our little cast of characters today, except for Marco, who has been adorable, Marco – it’s your festival. Tell us about the Italian Global series. No, really.”
Spagnoli politely deferred, Lyonne said she loved him and added, “I’m just workshopping material all day.” A line she repeated several times. And there were more monologues.
“Let me tell you something about middle-aged,” Lyonne says. “O.K. People go f**king nuts. The men don’t know what’s happening. You’re not still supposed to be f**kable. So, they get very confused. It’s a real tizzy, and they can only assume that you don’t mean a word you’re saying. There was a line in Tina Fey‘s book, ‘Bossy Pants,’ [that] really stuck with me. The line is ‘Under 40, you’re a f**kable jeans. Over 40, you’re a difficult, crazy lady.’ I did not think that was ever going to catch up with me. But boy, can I tell you it was true as ever. Here’s another little nugget for you. Hot flashes. These things are a f**king doozy. You’ve got no idea what’s happening. And I’ll be honest with you, I got banged out twice just last night, and nobody would believe I did. Did you have a witness in the audience with us today, friends? But I won’t name names. Now these f**king longitudinal folks, okay? You can’t watch to themselves. A goddamn thing. This guy is such a f**king gentleman. All right? He literally…we went to the Hamptons with my crazy blind dog, Rupert. Blind is a bad f**king animal, okay? She’s like, Mr. Magoo, Mrs. Gender is over, Oscar. Anyway, this guy is such a f**king peach. We went with me and Rupert to the Hamptons to visit my pal. He said, ‘I’m 38. Well, 39.’ He was trying to age up for me to impress my friend. Now ladies, is that not adorable? Because he knew I was about a decade older. We’re there.”
We’re not sure who the man Lyonne is referring to. Or who Rupert is, either. But Cosulich does his best to re-frame the chat into some semblance of a Q&A, revisiting the beginnings of her career.
“I don’t remember that,” Lyonne says. “So, I want to know, why are there photos of me on a bed of velvet black and satin with a bunch of little white pearls? My hair all like this and curly. I’m for you guys. Why does that photo exist? It’s a professional photo shoot. To answer your question about being a child actor and how you end up in this insane lane in life. It’s crazy.”
He then asks, “The question is, when [did you] decide really that acting was your life choice?”
“I still haven’t made that choice,” Lyonne says before going on a rant about needing to use the bathroom and looking for more water. She then returns to the question, adding, “I’m experiencing this entire thing. It’s been ongoing. I use very few things that I’ve actually consented to in my life or career, and it’s why I have a bad attitude and a bad reputation. And I never agreed to any of this badness. And I think you’re all f**king nuts. That said, I’m super duper grateful. You know what I mean? Because I have 12 steps in my life, so I understand sort of the music of the spheres or something like that. Some other f**king secondary cosmic realm of which I made peace, and I’ve done a lot of therapy and examined life. You know what I mean? And I get it. So, I’m grateful that my parents were nuts, but they really are dead. There really is no family there. So, it’s really a f**ing head trip.”
Perhaps explaining her mental perspective at this moment, Lyonne notes, “That is a dual diagnosis of complex PTSD and addiction. And the two are very complementary, and it’s dead on. So, it’s not depression. It’s not mania. It’s not drugs. It’s not menopause. It’s the combination of a life of complex PTSD. So, as a child in a complicated environment and then doing all that business and all that crying and all that weird s**t. My brother is six years older than me. By the time my mom took me to my first audition when I was four, and I was weeping, she understood that it was normal for a kid to do that because she’d seen my brother do it first. That’s not really how logic works, so is it?”
Going on a different narrative about her career, Lyonne notes, “I’ve been like a semi-hot chick, sort of like a fat, funny best friend character. Suddenly I hit 40. I started peaking, and guys do that s**t to me all day long. I have no idea what the f**k they’re doing. It’s super weird.”
And then, back to Spagnoli.
“Marco, how’s it going? How’s your life? You married? Mark, how many kids you got? Four. Four kids? Where’s your ring?” She jokes. “Listen, I’m just f**king. These are bits I’ve been constructing for quite some time. I’m working on a relaxed comedy special. So this is called me trying it out in the room. I wanted to see how many f**king random fucking cameras we could have at a clip.”
Notably, Lyonne does seem to have taken on a rock star type of personality recently. When the moderator asks about her influences in this manner, Lyonne seems both frustrated and intrigued about the subject.
“I have used a lot of other references as many other artists have to kind of build on that work,” She says. “Even things like, for example, this interview being a brat. I didn’t just learn it from Charlie XCX recently. If you look at older Lou Reed interviews, right? You’ll see that he’s doing this. He’s going to sort of foreign countries and being a total a**hole, right? Puts on his sunglasses and those iconic Reed interviews. And he’s like, “I don’t understand. You do the interview.” It’s a funny thing when you’ve seen so many of those videos growing up and been doing this for f**king 43 years, you guys.”
And then, immediately, another tangent. But she’s trying to get something out. At least, we think she is.
“It’s so weird that people still think maybe you’re confused about where you are in space. I know where I am,” Lyonne insists. “It’s a bunch of people here in Italy. We’re going to do a little masterclass, and then we’re going to watch episode 203 of ‘Poker Face’ because I co-wrote it and directed it and produced it and was in it and was here editing it. And we came all out here, and I’m so happy to see you guys.
So, it’s a funny thing about when I talk about consent or ownership or whatever, that it’s like, for some reason, the female experience is that, no matter how many accomplishments you have, there’s a sense that you must not know something. Whereas a man, like I don’t know who it would be…Chris Nolan! When Chris Nolan says no cell phones, he means no cell phones. Nobody else [can make that request]. ‘Mr. Nolan, we’d love to help. Close the notebook.’ Mr. Steven Spielberg, how fun. We’re safe. For a woman, it’s like, ‘Is she O.K.?’ And that’s crazy for you to ask because guess what? We’re all going to make it home.”
Eventually, Lyonne got Cosulich to ask the aforementioned random woman in the audience, whom she brought on stage, no less, out on a date. He was game, but he didn’t need to be. But Lyonne was on a rant, in the middle of some sort of performance. Or, perhaps something else. It all could have been out of a mockumentary or documentary in the vein of the infamous “I Am Here.” Maybe six months or a year from now it will all make sense. Maybe she really is filming some sort of doc. But right now, walking out of that hall? We have questions and, perhaps, concerns.
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