Interview: Simon Helberg Discusses ‘The Audacity’ and Season Two of ‘Poker Face’

Whether you’re a fan of drama or comedy, Simon Helberg has you covered with The Audacity and season two of Poker Face.

AMC’s The Audacity had its season one finale on May 31 and has already been renewed for a second season, with the actor playing Martin Phister. The show takes place inside the bubble of Silicon Valley, exploring the twisted dreams, oversized egos, and lapses in judgement of the self-styled inventors of the future.

“I think Martin is trying to repair the trauma that he experienced, probably as a kid, the loneliness. I mean, to me, it feels pretty clear that it’s kind of the imaginary friend that he had as a child. He’s now trying to give to everybody else, so there’s an element of that, and then we find out some pretty dark details about his previous marriage, and his wife was abusive to his daughter. And so, I feel like there’s actually a kind of genuine, altruistic version of Martin, where he’s trying to create this companion to potentially provide comfort, safety, and guidance to kids like him, kids like his daughter.”

He continued to explain, “Even if it’s at the detriment or the cost of his actual real relationship with his own alienated teenager, he’s trying to solve loneliness for all alienated teens. I think a lot of these guys lose the plot, and they’re trying to kind of fix humanity in the future, or that’s what they tell themselves, fix sort of the arc of humanity, but they’re forgetting about the life stuff happening right now.”

Unfortunately, Peacock’s mystery-of-the-week series won’t be returning for a third season, but Poker Face definitely made its mark on fans. Each episode featured a new cast of characters and strange crimes for Charlie (Natasha Lyonne) to solve. Helberg portrayed Agent Luca Clark.

“If I’m doing TV, I just don’t have the whole story in front of me, so I’m learning a lot of the time as it goes, as I get the scripts. There’s something fun about that, too. You can’t really overthink everything too much because you don’t know the whole arc yet. The writing is so great on Poker Face and all of the people involved, all of the directors and the actors; it was just a dream,” Helberg shared. “It was like getting to do a new movie each episode with the best company I could have imagined.”

“I loved getting to play a character like Luca and getting to have action sequences, comedy, and love. It’s something I’ve never done, and I never exactly expected to have a scene where I’m racing towards a cliff and it’s my hand that pops over to save the girl. So, that was cool and just so well done. Rian Johnson, obviously, Natasha, and everybody there are just pretty exceptional people.”

Watch Awards Radar’s full video interview with the actor below, where we talk about Martin’s motives with Xander, what he hopes to expand on in the second season of The Audacity, understanding his characters’ perspectives, the television format, how Poker Face challenged him, where we leave Luca in the finale, and much more.

All episodes of The Audacity are streaming on AMC+, and both seasons of Poker Face are available on Peacock.