‘Poker Face’: Benjamin Bratt on Cliff’s Finale Revenge and Why He Can Never Listen to That Blues Traveler Song Again

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business Writer SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains spoilers from the “Poker Face” Season 1 finale, “The Hook,” now streaming on Peacock.

Benjamin Bratt sucked it in like Rin Tin Tin or Anne Boleyn to shoot one standout scene in the Season 1 finale of “Poker Face.” The bit in question featured a poetic recitation of the entire third verse (and one line of the hook) of Blues Traveler’s 1994 earworm “Hook” by Bratt’s character, Cliff Legrand, to Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie Cale while taking her back for judgement by his boss, casino mogul Sterling Frost Sr.

Why does he do this (an act that makes Charlie call him “the fucking worst”)? Only “Poker Face” creator Rian Johnson really knows for sure — but Bratt, Lyonne and “Poker Face” showrunners Nora and Lilla Zuckerman were all on board with the idea once the “Knives Out” and “Glass Onion” filmmaker wrote it into Episode 10, aptly titled “The Hook.” “That’s part of Rian’s charm, is he just throws things in there and then he doesn’t really explain it to you,” Bratt told Variety ahead of the “Poker Face” season finale, which dropped Thursday. “I guess charm is one way to put it.

I read it and was immediately both excited and terrified at the prospect of rendering that scene.” Lyonne, who stars in, executive produces and even directed on the show, was equally as frightened. “Honestly, I don’t know what Rian Johnson does in secret, and it was the first time I was scared,” the “Russian Doll” star said (and that was after she shot the slasher episode with Joseph Gordon-Levitt). “And I definitely spent time shaming him about it.