Natasha Lyonne has set her next feature film. The former Poker Face star will write and direct Bambo, which is set in the ’80s and follows a Brooklyn-born boxing-promoter father as he tries and fails to become the next Don King, and “takes his kid daughter along for the hurly burly ride of tax evasion, cocaine, race cars, lost dreams and heartbreak.”
Lyonne is producing through her Animal Pictures banner with Max Ferguson alongside Craig Mazin for Word Games and Sarah Sarandos. Principal photography is set to begin in the summer of 2026.
Bambo is the second feature film from Lyonne. Earlier this year, Lyonne announced she will be making her feature directorial debut with the AI film Uncanny Valley. Produced by Asteria Film Co., the hybrid AI studio Lyonne co-founded, Uncanny Valley will be set in the world of immersive video games and will blend live-action and game elements while centering on a teenage girl who becomes unmoored by a hugely popular AR video game in a parallel present. Lyonne and Brit Marling are teaming as co-writers on the feature with Jaron Lanier.
Lyonne’s film slate follows the more recent news that she will no longer be starring in Poker Face. Peacock surprise canceled the Lyonne-led murder-of-the-week series after two seasons, but creator Rian Johnson has been shopping the show with Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage as the new lead actor, replacing Lyonne as starring detective Charlie Cale. HBO and HBO Max chairman and CEO Casey Bloys said his network was “curious” about potentially saving Poker Face after the cancellation, but had nothing official to report.
Lyonne recently co-founded The Creators Coalition on AI (CCAI). Eighteen industry insiders, including Lyonne, banded together to launch the first-of-its-kind venture spearheaded by Daniel Kwan and Jonathan Wang that hopes to act as a central coordinating hub to upgrade industry systems and institutions about how AI is impacting all industries. The group is backed by 500-plus signatories.
Lyonne was nominated for both a 2026 Critics Choice award and Golden Globe award for her starring role on Poker Face. She co-created the three-time Emmy winning Netflix series Russian Doll, on which she starred, wrote, produced, showran and directed. She also starred on Netflix’s Emmy-winning Orange Is the New Black for seven years. She will next star on the upcoming third season of Euphoria; details of her role have yet to be revealed.
Her next projects include co-creating and co-starring in Sky’s retro comedy Force & Majeure alongside Matt Berry; starring in Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun; starring in and producing the adaptation of Ana Lily Amirpour’s Basketfull of Heads; and starring in the Netflix comedy Roommates, produced by Happy Madison Productions. Lyonne also has a story by credit alongside Joe and Kieran Fitzgerald and a producing credit on the upcoming Joseph Gordon-Levitt Directed AI thriller for Netflix from T-Street Productions.
Lyonne is repped by Untitled Entertainment and CAA, and attorneys James Adams and Scott Winston.
Word Games, founded by Mazin, has an exclusive television development deal with HBO and has produced hit series Chernobyl and The Last of Us.
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