Vulture went apartment hunting with actress Natasha Lyonne, who is enjoying a career resurgence as one of the stars of Orange Is The New Black on Netflix.
The piece follows Lyonne, a long time Manhattan resident as she considers a move to Brooklyn as her current lease is ending.
Vulture: The broker says he has a better apartment for us, a ground-floor two-bedroom pre-war on a quiet cul de sac in Brooklyn Heights for $3,700. Lyonne listens patiently, then asks, “And … how far is that from Manhattan?”
Outside the building, we run into Ethan Hawke and his 11-year-old son. Hawke and Lyonne did a play together, 2010’s Blood From A Stone, and now Hawke lives nearby. “If you live in this neighborhood, come over for a drink,” says Hawke, cheerfully. “Well, not a drink … ”
Lyonne steps out of the car at the cul de sac to see a gorgeous view overlooking Brooklyn Bridge Park, and then behind it, the financial district. “Is that Manhattan?” she asks, and is pleased to be affirmed. Then she turns around to see a man in a monk’s robe walking toward us. “I was hoping he’d be a samurai, have a sword, like Forest Whitaker in a Jarmusch movie,” she says. The cul de sac apartment is, she says, “not a winner, I’m gonna level with you,” and she fears that on-the-ground floor it might be “cock-a-roach-y,” but the next one on Henry Street is actually pretty close to what Lyonne has been looking for — an endless maze of rooms and space. The incredibly seventies kitchen, tiled in various shades of brown and white, is of particular interest. “I feel like swinging! This would be great for all my swingers’ parties,” says Lyonne.
Lyonne tells Vulture writer Jada Yuan that she’ll probably renew her lease and stay in Manhattan.
