‘Poker Face’ Recruits Katie Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, Giancarlo Esposito and Gaby Hoffmann for Season 2
Poker Face just revealed a winning hand for season two.
Katie Holmes, Kumail Nanjiani, Giancarlo Esposito and Gaby Hoffmann have all been tapped as guest stars for season two of the hit Peacock series. The season doesn’t yet have a premiere date. The first season had 10 episodes.
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The murder mystery show starring Natasha Lyonne and created by Rian Johnson has a homicide-of-the-week format. Lyonne stars in every episode as Charlie Cale, a Las Vegas cocktail waitress who has been on the run since the premiere and makes weekly pit-stops to solve murders, establishing herself as the show’s unlikely detective who has an extraordinary ability to determine when someone is lying.
The set-up brought in an eye-popping roster of guest stars for season one — a list that included Nick Nolte, Cherry Jones, Clea DuVall, Adrien Brody, Chlo? Sevigny, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jameela Jamil, Judith Light, Ellen Barkin, Lil Rel Howery, Ron Perlman, Stephanie Hsu and Tim Meadows.
Bets were high when discussing who would be tapped when the series returns because, as Johnson and Lyonne explained in a The Hollywood Reporter feature story, recruiting A-listers for episodic roles was an attractive premise. Each installment opens with a murder sometimes running for 15 minutes before Charlie Cale (Lyonne) steps into the frame, so the pitch of playing either a meaty villain or a memorable victim was alluring, especially if it meant having Lyonne as a scene partner.
“I remember Rian and I standing in my kitchen at one point, and we made a list of all our dream people who we wanted to work with, without any scripts,” Lyonne said about casting the first season. “We were like, ‘This person would be fun’ and ‘This person would be great.’ We ended up with quite a few of those people where it was either that we love them or had worked with them before, or it’s always been a dream to work with them.”
Now, Esposito (Better Call Saul, Parish), Holmes (Our Town, Ray Donovan, Rare Objects), Hoffmann (Transparent, Eric) and Nanjiani (Welcome to Chippendales, Only Murders in the Building) get their chance to spar with Charlie, as she continues her life as TV’s favorite new detective who will still be on the run for season two, hitting the road with her Plymouth Barracuda and encountering a new cast of characters and strange crimes she can’t help but solve with every pit-stop.
Poker Face is T-Street’s Johnson and Ram Bergman’s first television series and is produced by MRC, along with executive producer and star Lyonne under her production banner Animal Pictures.
Tony Tost (Damnation, Americana) takes over the role of showrunner, and executive producer, for season two. Nora and Lilla Zuckerman, who were showrunners for season one, will executive produce alongside Johnson, Bergman, Lyonne, Nena Rodrigue and Adam Arkin.
The first season premiered January 2023 as a critical darling, eventually earning four Emmy nominations and one for Light’s guest actress performance.
Esposito is represented by CAA, Sugar23, Jackoway Austen Tyerman and imPRint. Holmes is represented by UTA, Untitled Entertainment, Vision PR and Sloane, Offer, Weber & Dern. Hoffmann is represented by Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment and Peikoff Mahan Law Office. Nanjiani is represented by UTA, Mosaic and Isaac Dunham.
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