Simon Helberg joins the cast of Rian Johnson’s Poker Face
Natasha Lyonne leads the forthcoming detective series on Peacock
Aux News Poker Face
The list of recognizable faces populating the world of Rian Johnson’s Poker Face just got longer. As reported by Variety, Simon Helberg will be joining the upcoming murder mystery series on Peacock.
Poker Face stars Natasha Lyonne as a detective and will follow a case of the week format, though further details have yet to be shared. Previously announced cast members include Adrien Brody (Winning Time), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Super Pumped), Jameela Jamil (The Good Place), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Dascha Polanco (In The Heights), Lil Rel Howery (Free Guy), and David Castañeda (The Umbrella Academy).
Helberg is best known for playing Howard on The Big Bang Theory for all 12 seasons of its run. Since the CBS sitcom’s conclusion in 2019, his most notable role has been in Leos Carax and Sparks’ 2021 musical Annette, which must have given him a taste for more murder-centric storytelling. (After that Super Bowl scene, we can only hope that the killer will be revealed in an equally dramatic fashion in his episode of Poker Face.)
The 10-episode upcoming series was created by Rian Johnson, who is best known for his films such as Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Looper. He’s also directed episodes of Terriers and Breaking Bad, including the standout installment “Ozymandias.” Johnson was recently a voice actor on the podcast HeidiWorld: The Heidi Fleiss Story and has also appeared on his wife Karina Longworth’s podcast You Must Remember This.
Before Poker Face comes out, Johnson fans can look forward to Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, which will arrive in theaters and on Netflix later this year. The sequel to the 2019 crowd-pleaser follows the further adventures of Daniel Craig’s detective Benoit Blanc as a new case takes him to Greece and co-stars Ethan Hawke, Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Janelle Monáe, Jessica Henwick, and Leslie Odom, Jr.
13 Comments
Considering both Lyonne and Johnson have made their love for Columbo well-known and the format seems to lean to that direction, I wouldn’t be that surprised if this ended up feeling an unofficial homage to that show.Also I still cannot fathom how the rights for that franchise got that messy, but considering all the reboots, there have to be more than one studio bemoaning the fact.
That and pastiche is all he can do so far. He’s not exactly a writer with anything to say, so a straight up charming Columbo riff is what we’ll get.
So this is hard. I want to be mad at how dismissive you are about a writer not having “anything to say” (I really dislike “something to say” criticism, it just feels like those critics want pulpits to thump) but you say that it’ll be charming, which at least admits to the idea that someone with “nothing to say” can still be entertaining.I’m gonna go with mild irritation at “anything to say” and underline that I think such criticism borders on hypocritically shallow.
I thought Universal had the sole rights, but the original creators sued them over profits. The original show airs on Peacock so the rights probably aren’t too complicated. I don’t know who could replace Peter Falk as Columbo though.
Mark Ruffalo was gunning for it on Twitter a while back.
He’d be a good fit.
If anyone can do it, it’s Natasha Lyonne.
Natasha Lyonne may have spent a little too much time with Fred Armisen and now, like him, seems to think every brain fart needs to be a show.
Shoutout to Adrian Brody, who after a decade of relative obscurity, woke up one day and said “oh, right, I’m an Oscar winning movie star!” And proceeded to appear in everything good over the last year.
Be good to see what Helberg can do outside of TBBT, he always seemed the most natural out of the 4 guys.
I’m hoping for a reprise of his character from Dr. Horrible.