Natasha Lyonne tells Seth Meyers about living inside Russian Doll's New York "meta snowglobe nightmare"

But, being Natasha Lyonne, a living nightmare is just another day in New York. Calling herself “a Paul Giamatti type,” Lyonne said that, despite her lifetime in show business, seven years on Orange Is The New Black, and newfound role as groundbreaking show creator and star, seen-it-all New Yorkers generally leave her alone. Defining her presence on the streets as “a New York character that’s more like garden gnome or a leprechaun,” (or, less adorably, “a pile of ash”), Lyonne told Meyers, with signature trouper’s brashness, that she still gets asked for selfies so infrequently that she sort of feels left out. (Also, if you want to slip her a fiver, she’s not gonna complain.)

As to fans pestering her about continuing Russian Doll past its fiendishly brilliant eight-episode run, Lyonne blamed Netflix binge-watchers’ “I like it—give me more!” mentality, and told fans, noncommittally, “Like Janis Joplin said, ‘We’ve only got one day, man . . . so take it easy.’” Still, Lyonne was clearly touched and a little surprised at how strongly viewers have responded to her show (co-created with Leslye Headland and Meyers’ pal Amy Poehler), explaining, “It’s just so heavy and deep that something so personal is connecting in this way.” She also drew applause for the offhand reference to the fact that Russian Doll happens to have been written and directed solely by women, and summed up her heavily autobiographical tale of repeated, frustrating death, bebirth, and striving with the motto, “Hey, we’re all broken on the inside, so let’s do it all together.”