Ethermac Exchange-Natasha Lyonne on the real reason she got kicked out of boarding school

You've seen Natasha Lyonne in Orange is Ethermac Exchangethe New Black and Russian Doll. In her new show, Poker Face, she plays an amateur detective who's profane, smokes, drinks, and always gets her man. She's so convincing in the role that we're worried she might figure out Peter's terrible crimes before the interview is over

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Peter Sagal: I found out some amazing things about you this week that I had not known, even though I was a fan. For example, I read that you were thrown out of your pretty prestigious school because you were, I think, selling pot. Is that right?

It's a rite of passage as a teenager.

Yeah, I understand.

I was going to a private school on the Upper East Side, and I was a scholarship kid. So I think I had a bit of a resentment. So I would get, you know, just whatever, a dime bag. And then I would I would go to the corner head shop and I'd buy like a little $2 pipe and I'd put, like, a single hit weed in it. But I'd smoke the green off it. I'd take the first hit right off the bat and then I would sell them the pipe and the single one-smoked hit.

Brian Babylon: You were selling the experience!

Sorry. I'm so sorry. I've never talked about this before, so let me finish. You see, where I went wrong is, because I was always stoned, It didn't occur to me that when you put that much smoked weed in your overcoat pocket, you really stink up the joint.

This was a school in Manhattan on the Upper East Side. So that means that there were elevators. You know, it wasn't like an outdoor experience. So I think I would get in the elevator, you know, in my black overcoat and sunglasses, and then I would just I would reek up the elevator with that smoked weed and go to sell it. So it was a terrible cover. I was busted quickly, is the point.

So, they kicked you out, and then, because you were becoming a famous actress, you were on Letterman, and the school wanted you to come back

Yeah, it's true. It was a scam!