The brand new Peacock spy series Ponies, which stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson, is one of the best reviewed series of the year and while we await on an announcement on a second season, we were able to catch up one of the show's stars, Adrian Lester, and talk about his key role as CIA agent Dane Walter.
As Dane, he chooses to bring Bea (Clarke) and Twila (Richardson) into the CIA and use them as assets, so he breaks down what went behind that decision and how working with these two women gave Dane a new sense of purpose. Plus, we get into the season's biggest twist, how this was a different kind of character for the Laurence Olivier Award-winning actor, working with leading lady Emilia Clarke, and a whole lot more!
The cast features Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones; Secret Invasion), Haley Lu Richardson (The White Lotus; Five Feet Apart), Adrian Lester (Hustle; Mary Queen of Scots), Artjom Gilz (Dogs of Berlin), Vic Michaelis (Very Important People; Dropout), Nicholas Podany (Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between), and Petro Ninovskyi (Jack Ryan).
Ponies is now streaming, exclusively on Peacock!
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ROHAN: Dane is initially very skeptical of Bea and Twila, but they slowly seem to win him over. What does he see in them?
ADRIAN: I think he thinks less about their ability and much more about their determination to walk back into his office after their husbands have died and say, We want to get sent back to Moscow. It's the opposite of what any other person would kind of do. So, that intrigues him, and just like Dane, you don't read that, he says no, and on his face, he says, it won't work, to push them to see how far they'll go, and they push quite hard. And he realizes that whatever happens these two, they're right. No one's going to look at them. They're perfect for that kind of work. And maybe leaving them untrained protects them more than training them.
ROHAN: Dane is hiding a lot of his own stuff as well. How did that hidden layer influence how you played him throughout the season?
ADRIAN: Unlike many of the characters that I played, I wanted to make sure that Dane did not do anything to show who he was. His energy is all about, he's a spy, and his energy is all about having you think something that's not particularly true about him, or not have a clue what his true intentions are, and so, even in the later scenes when he’s going to the therapist, or when he's talking to Emile, you don't really get a sense of what he's really thinking. He keeps that to himself, and so I wanted to make sure that I was true to that. He's an onion, and we haven't really, we've only peeled the first layer back, that's all. We don't really know what's going on in there.
ROHAN: You’re often the 'straight man' to the chaotic energy of Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson’s characters. What was it like building that rapport with those two?
ADRIAN: A lot of the time, it was making sure I didn't smile or I didn’t laugh. Honestly, working opposite those two, there's a lot of warmth coming at you, a lot of heat, a lot of talent coming at you, and rather than engaging with it and enjoying their energy, actors will do that, you know, if one person starts high, then the other actor will join them. I had to resist and just pretend that it wasn't affecting me and hold the line of logic and information as best as I could.
ROHAN: The show has such a distinct 70s aesthetic—amazing setting, and lots of brown suits and wood-paneled rooms. Did being on location as well as the costume and production design help you sink into the Cold War headspace?
ADRIAN: Yeah, and I got an appreciation for a covert life not in the digital universe, a covert life where, you know, where our currency is information, and rather than it being on a little chip or a phone or a thing or a photo, they just have to retain it and remember. The instructions that he gives them, you stand outside the supermarket and you do this, and then he'll know that, and then he’ll walk in, and if he sits down, then you say this to him, and then he will respond with this, and then you give him this, he gives you that, and then, you burn the page. The instructions are there, and that whole world is really intriguing, and it was nice to play within that. Having wide collar suits and flares helps.
ROHAN: By the end of the season, Dane's world is literally on fire. Without spoiling too much, how does he reconcile the failure of the embassy's security with his own endorsement of the 'Ponies' project?
ADRIAN: If there is a possible Season Two, yes, there are a lot of unanswered questions, things we were led to believe throughout the whole series, we suddenly realize they are no longer true, and we've been led to believe a lie, but just like many of the characters have. So, there's a lot of answers needed for season two and also, there's a lot of scope for drama. Chris Grant, played by Louis, Bea’s husband, we don't know what his true nature is, the fact that he's there, and it's intriguing. And that's exactly what David intended, he wanted to leave the audience thinking, wait, what? I got to see season two!
ROHAN: While Dane does share plenty of information, he still knows a lot more than he’s telling Bea and Twila. How much of his backstory did you generate yourself versus how much was from the showrunners?
ADRIAN: I have to do enough and look at enough images and a pathway of military service for Dane to understand his involvement to serve and protect a country that was struggling in the ‘70s. It's in a bit of turmoil. Things aren't going exactly as planned, but the reason the country gets back on track is not because people stand back and watch. It's because people jump in, get their hands dirty, and try to steer things, you know, back into shape. And Dane is one of those people, I think I imagined him wearing a military uniform when he was younger and serving, and then, moving into desk work, and then, moving into embassy and CIA work, and so, there's a lot to unpack as time goes on. That's where I stopped. I didn't actually make any solid decisions that are going to be revealed later on. I've got to let, in many ways, I as the character, have got to let the script and the story surprise me.
ROHAN: While you work with both Bea and Twila, Dane sees something more within Bea. What do you think it’s about Emilia’s character that resonates with him and also, what was it like working with Emilia as your lead?
ADRIAN: Working with Emilia, I learned a lot, you know, even though we differ in age, watching her, working with her, watching how she juggled being a producer as well as playing the lead role, learning Russian, being up at the crack of dawn, having so many lines. She was phenomenal. She was absolutely phenomenal, and a wonderful leader. And I think Dane thinks that they'll carry out one task well, and then, suddenly they're looped in, and he has to use her again, because she's now a link to somebody quite high up in Russian intelligence. And so, she begins to be a spy who's way over her head in deep water, and you start to see how much Dane cares about the people that he sends out there, how much it upsets him when something goes wrong.
Moscow, 1977. Two “PONIES” ("persons of no interest" in intelligence speak) work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the USSR, and the pair become CIA operatives. Bea (Emilia Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Her cohort, Twila (Haley Lu Richardson), is a small-town girl who is as abrasive as she is fearless. Together, they work to uncover a vast Cold War conspiracy and solve the mystery that made them widows in the first place.