Natasha Lyonne isn't afraid to make her own projects—even if mainstream Hollywood isn't on board.
Part of that confidence has come with age, the 46-year-old tells Marie Claire in a new cover story for our Power Issue.
"You do develop a bit of a thick skin around myopic, short-term hot takes that don’t really encapsulate the breadth of vision being presented," Lyonne says. "It’s a gift of getting older: You discover just how ill-informed many people are."
When thinking about the projects she wants to create, the Orange Is the New Black actress doesn't concern herself with the zeitgeist or with what others believe is timely.
The actress and producer laments Hollywood's obsession with intellectual property, telling Marie Claire mournfully, "We lost an art form somewhere in that. We lost the point somewhere in there, which is, spoiler alert—we die at the end.
"So it becomes a question mark for me, at this age or stage: Who is it for? Whose public approval, exactly? Is that genuinely a win, if you’re able to hit a zeitgeist of status quo correctly? Or is, actually, the name of the game to push that forward, even if that risks being misunderstood temporarily?"
It's this attitude that has helped Lyonne get projects like Russian Doll and Poker Face off the ground via her production company, despite initial pushback from the industry.
As far as age goes, Lyonne—who began her career as a child star—doesn't consider it to be a hindrance. "It’s not actually [true] that a woman has less opportunities at a certain age," she tells Marie Claire. "As someone fully entrenched on that other side of that Maxim magazine I never did, now I have more opportunities than I ever did."
Poker Face season two is currently airing on Peacock, with the series finale scheduled for June 12.
