How Poker Face Brought Cynthia Erivo's Five Characters to Life in Season 2
Only an Oscar®-nominated actress could pull this off.
There’s no better way to kick off Season 2 of Poker Face than Oscar®-nominated guest star Cynthia Erivo (Wicked) playing not one, not two, but five identical sisters – all with distinct personalities – in the memorable premiere episode, “The Game Is a Foot.”
Directed by Poker Face creator Rian Johnson, the opening episode finds amateur crime-solver Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) investigating the death of hard-nosed stage mom Norma (guest star Jasmine Guy), who leaves her entire estate to a secret daughter named Felicity (Erivo). The stunning development drives Norma’s other daughter Amber (Erivo) – a former child actor who starred in a police procedural TV show called Kid Cop with her three sisters Bebe, Cece, and Delia (all played by Erivo) – to take matters into her own hands. Amber pushes Felicity off a cliff and assumes her identity so she can inherit her mother’s fortune.
Amber’s plan is going almost too well, until she discovers Felicity had a prosthetic leg. Oops. The fake leg becomes the key for Charlie in unlocking the story of Amber’s ruse and calling out the real culprit behind Norma and Felicity’s deaths.
The “brainchild” of writer Laura Deeley, showrunner/executive producer Tony Tost remembers thinking it was “a great idea” when Deeley first pitched the story, but thought there “was no way we can pull that off in 10 days” because of how “complicated” it was. The longer he and the Poker Face team worked through the idea, the more it became possible. They needed “an amazing director” to lead the charge and “an amazing actress” capable of handling the demands of five distinct roles.
Enter Johnson and Erivo.
“Rian’s like, ‘Yeah, I’ll direct that,’” Tost said. The Knives Out director, who is a big fan of theater, suggested Erivo as the perfect fit, who he called “one of the best living actors.” “We filmed this before Wicked came out,” Tost said, “which took her to a different level.”
On set, Johnson and Erivo “figured out how to pull [it] off,” Tost said. “Cynthia would play one half of a scene as one character, [we’d] hold the camera there, she’d walk off, change into the other [sister], come in, and then respond to what she just did as a new character.”
"A lot of it's in the script, but a lot of it is Cynthia taking it to a totally different level,” he added.
Tost is still amazed by Erivo’s performance, or rather performances, in the episode (yes, he’s watched it several hundred times).
“Every time I'm just blown away by what she pulls off and how fun it is. It's not a show-off performance. It's delightful,” he said. “I'm a big fan of that one.”
Stream the first three episodes of Poker Face Season 2 exclusively on Peacock, with new episodes dropping every Thursday.
