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Natasha Lester Biography & Facts

Natasha Bianca Lyonne Braunstein ( lee-OHN; born April 4, 1979) is an American actress, writer, television director, and producer. Known for her distinctive raspy voice and tough persona, she is the recipient of two Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as nominations for five Primetime Emmys and two Golden Globes. After working as a child actress, Lyonne came to prominence in the late 1990s with her roles as DJ in Everyone Says I Love You (1996), Vivian in Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), Megan in But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), and Jessica in American Pie (1999). Following various independent film appearances throughout the 2000s, she achieved widespread recognition with her portrayal of Nicky Nichols on Netflix's Orange Is the New Black (2013–2019). Subsequent television roles have included Charlie Cale on Peacock's Poker Face (2023–present) and Nadia Vulvokov on Netflix's Russian Doll (2019–2022), which she also co-created, executive produced, wrote, and directed. In 2023, Lyonne was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. Early life Lyonne was born in New York City, the daughter of Ivette Buchinger and Aaron Braunstein, a boxing promoter, race car driver, and radio host. Lyonne's parents were from Orthodox Jewish families and she was raised Orthodox. Her mother was born in Paris, to Hungarian-Jewish parents who were Holocaust survivors. Lyonne has joked that her family consists of "my father's side, Flatbush, and my mother's side, Auschwitz". Her grandmother, Ella, came from a large family, but only she and her two sisters and two brothers survived, which Lyonne has attributed to their blond hair and blue eyes. Lyonne's grandfather, Morris Buchinger, operated a watch company in Los Angeles. During the war, he hid in Budapest as a non-Jew working in a leather factory. Lyonne lived the first eight years of her life in Great Neck, New York. She and her family emigrated to Israel where she spent a year and a half. While in Israel, Lyonne participated in the 1989 Israeli children's film April Fool (Hebrew: אחד באפריל), which began her interest in acting. Her parents divorced, and Lyonne and her older brother, Adam, returned to the United States with their mother. After moving back to New York City, Lyonne attended the Ramaz School, a private Jewish school, where Lyonne was a scholarship student who took Talmud classes and read Aramaic. She was expelled in her sophomore year for selling marijuana to classmates. Lyonne grew up on the Upper East Side, where she felt she was an outsider. Her mother moved the family to Miami and Lyonne briefly attended Miami Country Day School. She did not graduate from high school, leaving before her senior year to attend a film program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, which she attended for a short time, studying film and philosophy. Her high school graduation depended on completing her first year at Tisch, but she left the program because she could not pay the tuition. Lyonne was estranged from her father, who was a Democratic candidate for New York City Council for the sixth District of Manhattan in 2013, and lived on the Upper West Side until his death in October 2014. She has said she was not close to her mother, who died in 2013, and has essentially lived independently of her family since age 16. Career 1986–1999: Beginnings and film breakout As a young child, Lyonne was signed by the Ford Modeling Agency. She was cast as recurring character Opal on Pee-wee's Playhouse at age seven, where she appeared between September and December 1986, and made her film debut that same year with a small part in the Mike Nichols comedy-drama Heartburn. Of her time working as a child actor, Lyonne later said, "I had to become coherent and a businesswoman at six. By 10, I was a jaded professional … I don't think [my parents] knew better. It was a decision of [theirs] built on hopeful ignorance". After playing a supporting role as Polly in Dennis the Menace (1993), Lyonne was cast at age 16 in the Woody Allen-directed musical comedy Everyone Says I Love You (1996), where she co-starred as D.J., the daughter of main character Joe (played by Allen). This led to a headline role in the independent coming-of-age comedy Slums of Beverly Hills (1998), for which she received positive notices for her portrayal of Vivian Abromowitz. Writing for The Washington Post, Michael O'Sullivan said, "Lyonne is marvelous in conveying Vivian's combination of confusion, curiosity, disgust and desire at what body and psyche are going through. After playing a string of people's daughters [in other films], Lyonne really comes into her own here as an actress, registering as a person and not merely someone's little girl". In 1999, Lyonne starred as Megan Bloomfield, a sexually confused teenager, in the satirical romantic comedy But I'm a Cheerleader. Despite a mixed critical reception upon release, the film was instrumental in raising awareness of the harms of conversion therapy, and has since developed a cult following. In the same year, Lyonne played the small but crucial part of Jessica—a role she reprised in two of the film's sequels—in American Pie (1999), which grossed over US$230 million at the box office. Other film appearances in 1999 included Christine in Detroit Rock City and a headline role in Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby. The latter, a follow-up to the 1996 original, was poorly received due to its violence and vulgarity, but Lyonne's portrayal of teenage prostitute Crystal Van Meuther was praised for its "earthy, hard-boiled" nature. 2000–2010: Mainstream and independent films Lyonne played the part of Jeanne, a college activist fighting for lesbian equality, in the acclaimed 2000 television film If These Walls Could Talk 2. She then appeared in the well-received Holocaust drama The Grey Zone (2001), and continued to work steadily through the early 2000s, in mainstream projects such as Scary Movie 2, Kate & Leopold (both 2001) and Blade: Trinity (2004), as well as smaller productions such as Zig Zag (2002), Die, Mommie, Die!, Party Monster (both 2003), Madhouse (2004), and My Suicidal Sweetheart (2005). Next, she headlined the 2009 experimental dark comedy The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, which was described as "relentlessly strange, courageous, and hyperactive" by The Austin Chronicle. Her portrayal of Debbie Tennis, a psychotic serial killer, in the 2010 horror parody All About Evil was particularly well received, with Film Threat commenting, "[its director] rightfully treats Lyonne as the superstar she is, giving us glimpses of the dark residing in [her] that made Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trick Baby [sic] the final cult masterpiece of the 20th century", noting that "her ability to unleash firehoses of ferocity is on full display here". 2011–present: Career resurgence and awards success Lyonne had a supporting role in Abel Ferrara's post-apocalyptic drama 4:44 Last Day on Earth .... Discover the Natasha Lester popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Natasha Lester books.