Life Lessons from Natasha Lyonne

Welcome to Life Lessons. This week, we’re revisiting our July 1999 cover story with Natasha Lyonne, the chaotic redhead with the raspy smoker’s voice who has been gracing our screens since her 1986 appearance at seven-years-old in the Nora Ephron dramedy Heartburn with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson. Over the following decades, Lyonne has displayed a gift for turning camp flicks into cult classics, and indie projects into timeless touchstones. At the time of her Interview cover shoot, Lyonne was fresh off her first major role in American Pie, and was preparing for her turn in the queer camp classic But I’m A Cheerleader. Below, a then-20-year-old Lyonne talks with the writer Graham Fuller about her burgeoning sexuality, life as a child star, and the secret to a long career. 

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“Who you fuck in high school isn’t as significant as you think it’s going to be at the time.”

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“I think sex is a metaphor for everything else in life, and the sooner you get over the idea that it’s not going to be perfect, the sooner you’re going to realize that nothing is, really. That way, you’ll appreciate it much more when you’re older and wiser and it can turn out to be perfect sometimes, if you’re lucky enough for that to ever happen.”

“When you’re younger it can take a lot of balls to ask a guy to use a condom.”

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“High school for me was about getting through.”

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“Though I wasn’t really successful at acting [in high school], I knew in my heart and head it was something that was one day going to make all these rich motherfuckers sit up and realize I was worth something. It was my secret.”

“I want to get comfortable financially and emotionally before I try to figure out all the issues of what it means to grow up. I have always wanted to be my own person so bad.”

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“Whereas New York makes total sense to me, L.A. makes none.”

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“There’s so much turmoil and war and violence going on day to day. How can kids be expected to be immune to that?”

“I believe art and life travel at the same speed; they’re juxtaposed.”

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“I try hard to be fearless, but I’m a hyper-analytical person and probably overly aware of everything that should be happening in a scene. But I guess acting’s the one place where—in the actual moment of it—I definitely feel a certain sense of abandonment.”

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“When I work, I want all the feelings I’ve ever felt to be in all the moments.”

“The industry is so big and they make the actual movie part so small. They don’t let it win, don’t enable it to get the best you have to offer. And that’s so twisted, dude.”

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“I’m definitely a flawed person who wears it on the outside. I don’t expect people to like me and I don’t expect people to think,’ Wow, she’s so simple and great.’ I think I’m a weirdo who wears it with pride.”

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“I do know that the more love you feel, the closer you are to being as real and as good as you can be. Once love is inside you, you’re screwed for life because you can’t hide it and you can’t ignore it. It’s too overwhelming a feeling. It takes you to the edge of the cliff and you’d better hope it doesn’t leave you there because you won’t know whether to jump off or not.” 

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“I mean, fuck acting—I wouldn’t trade my relationship for the world.”