‘Russian Doll’ Co-Creator Natasha Lyonne Talks ‘Groundhog Day,’ Meeting Amy Poehler, and “Metaphorical Bottoming-Out”

Natasha Lyonne would be the first person to acknowledge that she’s neither a mainstream movie star nor a superstar of the small screen, but the many film and television appearances she’s made over the years have served her well in terms of making her a highly familiar face. With any luck, Lyonne’s new Netflix series, Russian Doll, which she co-created with collaborators Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland, will finally find her being kicked up to the major leagues. (Yes, it’s really that good.) In advance of the series’ debut, Decider talked to Lyonne about the long and winding path that led to the series, the cathartic nature of its contents, the importance of compiling the perfect soundtrack, and the understandable but in-no-way-comprehensive comparisons to a certain Bill Murray movie.

DECIDER: To kick things off, I don’t think you could’ve selected a better song to play repeatedly throughout the series than Harry Nilsson’s “Gotta Get Up.”

NATASHA LYONNE: Oh, yeah. You know, that Harry Nilsson documentary [Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?)], I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but… I mean, it’s so fucking heavy! And I think it’s something that – because of my own life experience through the wringer of addiction and sort of knocking on death’s door too many times – it was very personal for me. I always knew that I wanted the song to have a layer to it, so that somebody’s own story would kind of in some way foreshadow and mirror an element of what Nadia was going through. One person we also investigated as a figure was Ronnie Spector, just feeling like she had kind of a heavy journey to go through as well! [Laughs.] And there were other people that I love, like Lou Reed, who was a real contender. Lou Reed’s “Crazy Feeling” was in the mix, but it felt like his experience was very much – or almost exactly! – like who Nadia is! In a way, there was something about the upbeat attempt of Harry Nilsson that just felt spot on. but somehow it almost felt like stuff that was actually on Nadia’s headphones, but in a different way than the bigger story of the absurdity of the larger world she was inhabiting. I mean, the playlist that I’ve been making for, like, a decade for this fucking show… It’s absurd.

Now, do you have that playlist on Spotify?

No, but, y’know, maybe for the right price, I could send this to you later. We can talk money after the call.

I’m so close to checking to see what’s in my wallet, you don’t even know.

[Laughs.] You know, it’s not even anything you wouldn’t expect. There are some deep cuts. Like Yoko Ono’s “Will You Touch Me,” that wasn’t really in play, and it’s because it’s from some weird… It didn’t even make it on the album! And it wasn’t even necessarily the reset song. But the whole music process of the show was… Well, Brienne Rose is our music supervisor, and I really don’t know that she’d ever had such aharrowing journey in her life as what I put this poor lady through! Because every inch of it was kind of… Like, there’s [“…And The Rain” by] John Maus that plays just for a second on Nadia’s back in the pilot episode, and it was very important to me. You know, it’s only there for, what, maybe 10 seconds? Those decisions were kind of zany for people, but I’m a true believer that music is such a huge aspect of what we associate with, as something that’s kind of in our zone and in our bones, that makes us give a fuck about what we’re watching, y’know?

The phrase “soundtrack of your life” is kind of a cliche, but it’s perfect, I think.

Yeah, I think it’s an important thing! And then towards the end… Like, I remember very early days [when] Roxy Music was in play, and we kind of tried some Roxy Music at the end of Episode 8, but it kind of gave it this, like, ’80s-movie quality. [Laughs.] Which is technically not bad, but… Love has always been one of my favorite bands, and there’s that lyric in [“Alone Again Or”] – “I heard somebody say that I could be in love with almost anyone” – and I think that idea as a concept is sort of very on-point for Russian Doll. I mean, the show is very much the opposite of the hippie experience, and yet this concept that we’re sort of comforted by our own separation and otherness from each other… There’s something to be said for starting to realize that we’re all stuck together in this upside-down ship we call a life, so we better read the writing on the wall and start working as a team here, because time’s running out.

And then there’s other things that were just too big. I mean, it’s, like, are you really gonna put David Bowie in your TV show? It’s a little bit presumptuous. [Laughs.] But the one Bowie song that I thought would’ve been kind of funny was “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” just as a funny idea that was on theme. So was [Lou Reed’s] “Gimmie Some Good Times,” and “No Fun” by the Stooges. There was an early version where “Not Tonight” by Lil Kim was gonna be the opening song! There was a lot of stuff in the mix. I mean, Television’s “Marquee Moon” was great, but it’s almost too iconic. It’s an interesting thing trying to find the right music. Like, we couldn’t really afford Brian Eno.

But in going with Harry Nilsson, it meant that the rest of it kind of became more of these bands that I’m obsessed with that would sort of be of an ilk and weren’t, like, greatest hits of the ’70s that we’d never be able to afford. I’m definitely a class of ’77 person in general, but Light Asylum is in there (“Shallow Tears”), Gang Gang Dance is in there (“MindKilla”), Cass McCombs is in there (“Dreams-Come-True-Girl”), and Pussy Riot is in there, because one day I just woke up and I was, like, “Wait a minute: fucking Russian Doll? Where’s Pussy Riot?” [Laughs.] And Chloe [Segivny] and Kim Gordon put me in touch with Nadezhda [Tolokonnikova]. So doing the music was definitely an obsessive thing for me. I remember writing Mae West into the script, because that’s a good secret trick to kind of be, like, “I’m sorry, it’s in the script, we’ve got to find money for this one!” Also, “My New Year’s Resolutions” is such a crazy song that I’ve always been obsessed with.

So, yeah, the music was… [Hesitates.] Um, are we just talking about the music, or am I making this up?

Well, not exclusively. But I’m the one who opened up that can of worms by bringing up the perfection of using “Gotta Get Up.”

If that wasn’t the sole goal of your interview, though… [Laughs.] I kind of went on a tear there. Sorry!

No, no, I wanted to know about the music, and I loved every minute of that answer. But I did have a few other questions. For instance, I know that you first worked with Amy Poehler on the pilot Old Souls, but was that where you and she actually first met?

No, I was always very tight with Maya Rudolph, so I think that was kind of why I was hanging around the SNL scene. This was back in the ’90s, or what I call the ’90s, which means it was probably more like 2002. [Laughs.] I was also very close friends with Jake Fogelnest, who’s a great writer and figure, so he was kind of taking me around the UCB [Upright Citizens Brigade] in those early days, and I would kind of just be, like, hanging around and smoking weed, and I never really noticed that Amy was noticing me as a person. And then one day she called me up out of the blue – whatever this is now, seven or eight years ago – and she said, “Natasha, as long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been the oldest girl in the world.” And I was, like, “Why are you calling me to insult me? This is not a nice phone call.” And then she said, “So I was thinking we should make a show together about that and maybe call it Old Souls.” So it was a thrilling phone call, I was all the way in, and it was not the beginning of us knowing each other, but it did end up laying the foundation of us having this adult deepening where we really got to work together and be collaborators.

And once Old Souls didn’t happen, we started really thinking about what to do next, and I remember Amy saying, like, “Okay, so what is the show that you would really want? What would we really want to say? Leaving aside any restrictions from network TV.” So she and I began really unpacking what would become the seeds of Russian Doll and then bringing Leslye [Headland] in, it all started really crystallizing. But a lot of the stuff… The funny things that remained were, like, the name “Nadia.” I’d always named all of my characters “Nadia” in my writing, based on Nadia Comaneci, my favorite gymnast from the ’80s.

So how cathartic was it for you to do this series? Because I know there are at least some parallels between the character and yourself.

Um… Yeah, I mean, I would say… [Hesitates.] It was deeply cathartic in the best way. In a way that, frankly, was terrifying. It could’ve been a nightmare if people hated it. I’m, like, so relieved that people are taking to it kindly. Because it could’ve been very awkward, emotionally. [Laughs.] Which I guess was a risk I took without sort of seeing it through. I just sort of jumped off that cliff and hoped for the best, and I was, like, “Here’s all my most personal stuff! See you later!” And that could’ve been, I now feel, a real nightmare. So it was a real act of trust. But other than some Trump supporters who really don’t like me – I have kind of a healthy Twitter life with a bunch of other weirdos that I’ve found – I think there’s maybe a comfort in being kind of an outsider figure. I’ve never been so mainstream that I maybe never really actually thought that people would watch it! Frankly, I still don’t know that they will, to be honest with you. I’ve just never really been that person! So I think for that reason there’s kind of almost a little bit of a trust that happens, where it’s, like, “Oh, well, this is our weird little show, so it doesn’t matter, you might as well really try to tell the truth.”

Anyway, yeah, it’s basically a journal entry executed with collaborators, and it’s an incredible thing to be able to collaborate like that and watch the seed of your idea become something that people can understand. The greater themes of what was important to me, telling a story of walking all the way into the abyss of a human experience and thinking that your day is done and you’ve dropped out decidedly for sure, and then returning from that – was quite clearly what my very grounded experience has been, for better or worse. That’s just my story.

Not intentionally, obviously, but it ended up becoming my story. It was basically somebody who had this very bizarre childhood with some tricky people as parents who didn’t quite know how to do that part of arrangement, and then was a very self-destructive youth, and then came back from that. But then there’s the awkward reentry, and what does it mean to walk around with this brokenness? Is it a permanent condition? Or is it something that I can assimilate into a way of life that has to hold the space for just the truth of that experience and has to say, “Hey, I’m permanently changed by what I went through, is it okay for me to still be a participating member of this thing you guys call a life?”

That sort of rearrangement is a story that I wanted to tell that also felt like… It was very weird to be telling this story and then seeing the headlines that kept coming in, like our suicide rates. It’s very heavy and very real, but people feel like they’re supposed to be having an experience that’s just not truly possible in many ways. This idea of perfection and happiness is ultimately sort of elusive. So what would it be like if we just sort of accepted that the whole charade was a little bit more uncomfortable, that we’re all a little bit broken, and that nobody quite knows what they’re doing? Would there be some sort of release in that? Especially for young people, to say, “Hey, let’s not hold that up as such a great ideal, because there’s a body count to that.” There’s a real risk in the illusion of assembly-line propaganda and Stepford Wives bullshit. There’s a real risk for young people around that, and it’s just not true, it’s not real, and we don’t have to play that game. It’s kind of up to us.

There’s the obvious comparison to Groundhog Day, just by virtue of the fact that she’s reliving the same day over and over again, but it almost feels dangerous to simplify it down to that essence, because it’s so much more than that. It’s so dark and tension-filled by the end of it that I was gripping the arm of the couch while I was watching.

Well, first of all, you know, I love Groundhog Day,and I love Bill Murray, and I’m happy that people are saying that.

Well, sure. And I didn’t say that to knock Groundhog Day at all.

Yeah, it’s just, like, for shorthand, when I had to explain it to waiters or my deli guy in short conversations, I’d be, like, “Yeah, it’s like No Exit meets Groundhog Day.” So I understand the purpose of the comparison as a shorthand. But, yeah, I do think it’s a very different beast, y’know? [Laughs.] In some ways, it’s maybe closer to Exterminating Angel, All That Jazz, or Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling. And I would say that the beginning of the series – or what you could call the first act – is where I think Groundhog Day disappears entirely. I think as soon as you’re watching it, you know that that’s not really what it is. So if it helps people to think that, then that’s great.

Everything’s always compared to everything in some way, anyway. We never say, “Hey, new idea!” I think we just like making comparisons. “If Marlon Brando and Danny De Vito had a baby, but taller!” [Laughs.] We like doing that game. So be it. That’s not my problem. It’s not my baby, it’s not my problem! And this is sort of the magic of Netflix, the idea that we get to go so much deeper into the belly of the beast is a really fun element of the four-hour movie delivered in hopefully-funny half-hour installments. Like, I wonder what kind of movie Groundhog Day would’ve been if it was four hours. There were certainly some smart people who made that movie, and Bill Murray is amazing.Maybe they would’ve done it, too!

But it definitely feels like a misconception, in that this is really more of a metaphorical bottoming-out and asking, “Now that I’ve arrived here, what happens?” It seems like that’s more to the essence of the story that’s appropriate and truthful for me to tell: that it was backed by tangible experience of something I knew first hand. But let the record show that I’ve never actually physically died and come back. Only sort of a little bit, y’know? But never a full flatline. [Laughs.] Only almost. And only a few times!

Will Harris (@NonStopPop) has a longstanding history of doing long-form interviews with random pop culture figures for the A.V. Club, Vulture, and a variety of other outlets, including Variety. He’s currently working on a book with David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker. (And don’t call him Shirley.)

Stream Russian Doll on Netflix