In 2016, actress Natasha Lyonne posed as Yentl for the cover of the Rosh Hashana edition of Tablet Magazine, mimicking an iconic snapshot from Barbara Streisand’s classic film for what must be in contention for the title of most Jewish photoshoot ever.
But when it comes to the Orange is the New Black, Russian Doll and Poker Face actress Lyonne, she’s ever more Jewish than you might assume.
Before she developed the raspy-voiced, tough-guy persona by which she’s known in film and television, Lyonne, born Natasha Bianca Lyonne Braustein, was raised between Israel and New York by Orthodox Jewish parents.
Natasha Lyonne recreates Barbara Streisand's iconic snapshot from 'Yentl' for Tablet Magazine's Rosh Hashana issue 2016. (Photo: Annabel Mehran)[Missing Credit]
As she told Esquire, her father is “a proper Flatbush, Brooklyn, Jew from a very black-hat family” while her mother is the child of Auschwitz survivors who relocated to Paris. When she was eight, the family moved to Israel for two years, during which time her interest in performing was sparked after she took a role in an Israeli children’s film called April Fool. Lyonne called the experience of living in Israel “idyllic,” not least because her parents divorced as soon as the family returned to the US.
After moving to the Upper East Side of NYC, Lyonne attended the Modern Orthodox day school Ramaz, where she was on a scholarship and read the Talmud in the original Aramaic, but was kicked out as a sophomore for selling weed. She was also kicked out of Israeli summer programme Chetz V’Keshet. Lyonne has said she was not close to her parents and essentially lived independently from the age of 16, when she was expelled from Ramaz.
Natasha Lyonne, Left, as Jessica in "American Pie." (Photo By Getty Images)Getty Images
Fortunately for Lyonne, at 16 she was cast in Woody Allen’s 1996 musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You, in which she played the daughter of protagonist Joe, played by Allen. This led to a prolific career in film and television, with notable early performances in the 1999 comedy But I’m a Cheerleader, the 1999 sequels of American Pie, the 2001 Holocaust drama The Grey Zone, and Scary Movie 2. Her first TV job as a series regular was as Nicky Nichols in Orange is the New Black, which relaunched her career after several years consumed by drug and health problems.
The role earned her much acclaim and seemed to solidify her witty, rough-around-the-edges persona.
As The New Yorker described in a 2022 profile, “Lyonne speaks in the rhythms of a Borscht Belt comedian. Her accent is outer borough, featuring rumbustious pronunciations (‘cahk-a-rooch') and the raspy Ehhhh’s of a tired old rabbi settling into a comfortable chair.”
Natasha Lyonne attends Netflix's "Russian Doll" Season 2 Premiere in 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)Getty Images
Another major career win came when she wrote and starred in the Netflix comedy-drama series Russian Doll, which was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series and won several Emmys for costumes, cinematography and production design. The series sees protagonist Nadia, played by Lyonne, in a sinister ‘Groundhog’s Day’ situation where she keeps dying over and over again, and includes a storyline in which Nadia confronts her Hungarian grandmother’s experience of the Holocaust. It was a way of exploring inherited trauma, something she could relate to firsthand thanks to her family history.
As Lyonne told Tablet during her cover interview in 2016, when she posed as Yentl: “I am in conflict with my heritage and there is an element of integrity to my own, conflicted views. Posing as Yentl seemed like the perfect way to reconcile my complicated feelings about Judaism. But I also feel very connected to it—Bugsy Siegel, Lenny Bruce, Larry David. Those are Jews I can get behind.”
Lyonne currently stars in comedy series Poker Face, which she also wrote.
