Natasha Lyonne may have earned her fifth Emmy nomination Wednesday, this time for her role as amateur detective Charlie Cale in Peacock’s Poker Face, but, while the actress is grateful for the accolade, she spent her morning thinking mostly about the looming threat of artificial intelligence.
She told Deadline that she and series creator Rian Johnson briefly spoke of the nomination, if only so she could tell him to “try to convince Karina [Longworth, his wife] to be my date” to the Emmys.
For the most part, the pair have been discussing AI — which is a hot topic in Hollywood as SAG-AFTRA continues contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The actors guild’s contract is set to expire at midnight PT, when the actors could go on strike if they don’t reach a deal.
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Deadline reported Tuesday that artificial intelligence has become a significant obstacle to any deal not just for SAG, but also for the WGA, which has been on strike for 72 days. Lyonne called Deadline’s reporting on the deep divisions between the studios and the guilds on the use of AI “harrowing.”
“It is really, really dark and dystopian, frankly. I don’t know if that was the goal [with the story] or what, but certainly this is a time of needed solidarity….it just feels like, really, the thing to do would be to not be so corrupt such that you actually give the people who make the things you put on your networks fair deals,” she said, adding: “It does feel like a very dark moment in time. I’m not sure what the big endgame is here.”
AI is not the only point of negotiation between the guilds and the studios, though it appears to be the most contentious. It’s also been the talking point stuck on the minds of many creatives in Hollywood since the WGA went on strike in May.
Lyonne said she fears that the use of AI will not only present issues for established stars, it will also “completely collapse the ability for artists to get their work out there.”
“It’s very crushing,” she said. “We just want to make stuff and we just want to make it fairly. I think we all understand that AI is potentially cheaper and a tool that we can use, but I just don’t think we want to give away our rights and free will of how to use it over to people that are just going to be in the interest of doing things faster and cheaper.”
She continued: “Why would we want to be in such a conflict with essentially trying to communicate the human experience? It just feels very twisted. It’s like the dark arts.”
However, Lyonne pondered that it feels like a moment in time where “maybe it should come as no surprise,” given last year’s Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, that “on a human level people just don’t want to give people basic human rights.”
What it all boils down to is that, Lyonne, much like her character Charlie Cale, “would love to see the good guys win.”
Lyonne’s nod for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series was one of four for the Peacock series, which along with Mrs. Davis and The Traitors boosted the NBCU streamer from three nominations last year to eight this year.
And for the record, if she does take home the Emmy this year, Lyonne told Deadline she’s been brushing up on old acceptance speeches made by Columbo actor Peter Falk to help her with her own monologue.
“Just in case I happen to make it up there, I can do a word-for-word [reenactment] talking about my long day making it through LaGuardia,” she joked.
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