You’ve heard the phrase “hardest working man in showbiz”. Well, I’m about to tell you about the hardest working woman in showbiz. Her name is Natasha Lyonne, and she has no less than eight films coming out in 2001.
Some of you may be scratching your head, asking, “Who the heck is Natasha Lyonne?” Well, she’s one of those character actresses that you know you know, but might not know her name.
Born in 1971 in New York City, Natasha Lyonne has become one of the best and brightest young actresses to hit the small and big screen. Sadly, I could find no real fan websites for Ms. Lyonne, and I think that’s a tragedy since she’s one of today’s most exciting person to watch on screen.
Lyonne grew up in New York City along with her brother as the children of race car driver Aaron Braunstein and Yvette Lyonne, a former ballerina. She didn’t set out to become an actor, however in 1986 she got her first professional opportunity, appearing on the television show Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. This one resume’ credit landed her a small role in the Meryl Streep film Heartburn.
However, Natasha disappeared from auditions after that when her family suddenly moved to Israel for a short time as the parents attempted to fix a problematic marriage. However, the effort ended in divorce and Lyonne moved back to Manhattan with her mother. The auditioning process began again and quickly she was able to add As the World Turns and 1993’s Dennis the Menace to her slowly growing credits. Once again, however, Natasha was uprooted from the comforts of New York and she and her mother moved to Miami, where Lyonne attended a private school.
But the big break for Lyonne came in 1996, when she was cast as Woody Allen’s daughter in Everyone Says I Love You, Allen’s musical that co-starred such notables as Edward Norton, Julia Roberts, Alan Alda and Goldie Hawn. Lyonne received rave reviews as the match-making daughter in Everyone, and began being offered more roles. Around this same time she received an early acceptance to New York University, where she hoped to study film and philosophy. However, Lyonne has deferred that enrollment three times because Hollywood kept calling with acting jobs.
In 1998 she starred in the abominable Krippendorf’s Tribe, but she more than made up for it with the tour de force role of Vivian Abramowitz in Slums of Beverly Hills, co-starring Alan Arkin, Marisa Tomei, and David Krumholtz. In Slums she vividly portrayed a coming-of-age teenage girl in the 1970s dealing with being the only girl in the family. This movie was wildly applauded by critics, some of whom claimed that Lyonne outshined all her co-stars and the script.
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