Cynthia Erivo Felt “Totally Insane” Playing Multiple Roles on ‘Poker Face’

In Wicked, Cynthia Erivo was not that girl—but on Poker Face, she is, five times over. The second season premiere of Rian Johnson‘s hit crime-comedy series asks Elphaba to put down the broomstick and pick up a hammer to play five different roles opposite Natasha Lyonne‘s bullshit-sniffing Charlie Cale. In an exclusive clip, you can see Erivo and Lyonne go toe-to-toe in Poker Face, which returns to Peacock May 8.

After spending 18 months playing one green girl, Erivo was more than ready for the challenge of playing five sisters at the same time. “I knew that my head would be split into many different spaces, but I was like, ‘Well, if not now, then when?” the Oscar nominee says. “ I’m always open to trying things that I haven’t done before, and I wanted to do this. I wanted to figure out what it would be like to compartmentalize and play different characters all at once, to challenge myself to see if it was possible.”

The result is an absolute doozy of an episode that sees Erivo sporting a number of fabulous wigs and eccentric accents. To craft each character, Erivo spent a lot of time working from the outside in. “The most helpful thing was finding out what they would wear, finding out what their costumes were like, finding out what their personality was like within those costumes,” she says. “The look, the hair, the makeup—all of those things that keep people very specific knowing that underneath it all is my face.”

Being her own scene partner was “crazy,” Erivo says. On days where she was only playing two characters at once, things were a bit more manageable. “I’d play one side, and I’d have a lovely stand-in doing the other side,” she says. “I would still have to remember what I did on one side so that my reaction would match the other way, so that it would make sense when speaking to each other.”

But other days, she was playing as many as four as characters in a single scene. “On a day when we were doing four of the characters: insane,” she says. “Totally insane.” To make things more difficult, Erivo shot the episode smack dab in the middle of her whirlwind Wicked press tour with Ariana Grande. “We were in the midst of everything, doing everything, going everywhere,” she recalls. “I had 11 straight days of shooting this baby in New York… to say I was mentally exhausted is an understatement. I would get to the end of the day and not even really even know my own name. I’d be like, ‘I don’t know where I am.’”

“It was absolutely manic,” she says with a laugh. “But in the best possible way.”

Acting opposite Lyonne and her massive chicken leg was a walk in the park, comparatively. “I loved it. It was so easy,” Erivo says. “We had such a fun rapport. I’d look in her eyes and she’d look in mine, and we’d be like, “Oh, we’re playing. Let’s go.’” This Saturday, Poker Face will screen Erivo’s episode at PaleyFest in Hollywood, with Lyonne, Johnson and a few of the season’s glitzy guest stars, like Melanie Lynskey, John Cho, and Kumail Nanjani, in attendance.

As for Erivo, she’s got a lot on her plate before Wicked: For Good flies into theaters November 21, 2025. “We’re getting started, but there’s so much to do before we dive completely into Wicked: Part Two,” Erivo says. “My brain hasn’t completely comprehended the fact that we are needing to start that next phase of it.” She says she’s beginning to prep for her upcoming gig hosting the Tony Awards in June, wrapping up the film adaptation of Children of Blood and Bone, and gearing up to play Jesus in Jesus Christ Superstar at the Hollywood Bowl in August. “I will have been many characters before I go back to Elphaba,” she says.

But although she’s booked and busy, Erivo would absolutely find the time to play her Poker Face family all over again. “If I could do it again, I absolutely would,” she says. “Bring those characters back. I loved doing it so much.”