Despite years of roles that would suggest the contrary, Natasha Lyonne doesn’t partake these days.
While discussing her performance in Azazel Jacobs‘ His Three Daughters, the Golden Globe nominee recently opened up about being typecast “as a druggie” in her career
Co-star Carrie Coon explained to Rolling Stone, “It’s funny, because none of us knew each other, but Aza wrote all of these roles for us knowing we’d complement each other. Yet none of them are tailored to who we are. I mean, I can be controlling. But it’s not like Natasha is a pothead.”
“No, I just present as one,” quipped Lyonne. “Pot’s not my bag. I’m actually an ex-junkie. But I see why he thought of me, and at first I was like, ‘Oh, no, it’s another “Here’s Natasha as a druggie”‘ — which I’ve already done so many times, on screen and in life.”
She has been open about her history of drug abuse and treatment, having gotten sober in 2006.
Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne in His Three Daughters (2023). (Sam Levy/Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection)
Lyonne credited her co-stars Coon and Elizabeth Olsen for helping her find a way into the role. “I was riding so hard for two strangers, but it was like, ‘I have to do this because of them.’ And now these two are, legitimately, two of my favorite people of all time. It’s not like a ‘I need to talk to you guys every day’ kind of thing, but it’s so for-real,” she said.
In His Three Daughters, now playing in select theaters and streaming on Netflix, Lyonne, Coon and Olsen star as three estranged sisters who reunite in a New York City apartment to care for their dying father (Jay O. Sanders), forcing them to confront past issues and heal together.
Meanwhile, Olsen didn’t expect to be cast as the “softer, more nurturing” sister Christina after so often playing harsher roles. But Coon was less surprised to play the domineering Katie. “I think my family would say that!” she said.