MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
What makes a good spy - training, experience, being able to blend in easily, nerves of steel? Of that list, the lead characters in the new Peacock series "PONIES" possess just one, and actually, that's debatable. As women working for the CIA in Cold War-era Moscow, they are, as the station chief refers to them, persons of no interest, P-O-N-I, ponies.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PONIES")
HALEY LU RICHARDSON: (As Twila Hasbeck) I mean, we're women. People only look at us if they want to [expletive] us or marry us, and that's it. So nobody would ever think that two people like us would be spies. And you know that.
KELLY: The series stars Haley Lu Richardson as Twila - you just heard her there - also Emilia Clarke as Bea. When we meet the pair, they are embassy wives. Then their husbands, who are both CIA officers, are killed in the line of duty. So the women persuade the CIA to take them on and to send them back undercover to Moscow. Haley Lu Richardson and "PONIES" showrunner David Iserson join me now. Welcome, you two.
RICHARDSON: Hi, Mary Louise.
DAVID ISERSON: Hi.
KELLY: Hi. Haley, I want to start right there with that idea that a good spy should blend right in. And your character is, as we noted, a PONI, a person of no interest, 'cause she's a woman. But you definitely get noticed. Tell us about Twila.
RICHARDSON: Twila is, like, a lot. She's uninhibited. She's loud.
KELLY: (Laughter) She is a lot.
RICHARDSON: Some might find her too much, but she is who she is. And, like, throughout the death of her husband, then the friendship with Bea and the things she learns from her and being kind of, like, thrown and challenged within this world of espionage or lesbionage (ph), which I've been calling it lately (laughter).
KELLY: Spoiler alert there. Your character hooks up with another woman. Yeah.
RICHARDSON: Spoiler alert. Sorry about that.
KELLY: You're talking about her strengths and weaknesses as a character.
RICHARDSON: Yeah.
KELLY: What is her strength, as she's, you know, sent in as a undercover CIA officer into the middle of Cold War Russia?
RICHARDSON: Well, her strength is her, you know, genuine fearlessness and her acting based off, like, her gut. And I think that comes from, like, her survival instincts and the way she's, like, had to exist in the world. It's like, those things are a weakness in a way because they actually prevent her from making real connection, but it's also a joy of who she's grown into - this, like, strong, uninhibited, wild lady, like (laughter)...
KELLY: David, you paint a pretty bleak picture of life in Moscow in the Cold War, and I'm thinking of this scene where Twila and Bea - this is early on. They go to a pub. There's this clandestine meeting. They're supposed to do an exchange, and there's a secret message tucked inside a copy of "Anna Karenina." And I was laughing. You have a bartender who plops this really greasy-looking glass of vodka down in front of Bea. And she's like, oh, I haven't even ordered. I haven't even looked at the menu, and he's like, lady, this is...
RICHARDSON: This is what we have.
KELLY: Yeah, this is the menu (laughter).
ISERSON: Yeah. I mean, I think that was kind of a combination of what felt true. We talked to a woman who had lived in Moscow in the '70s, who was, like, in the underground theater scene, and she talked about what these pubs were like. And, you know, the pub that we shot at was pretty much an unchanged pub from Budapest from, you know, the '60s or '70s, so we had a lot of that to work with. And, you know, we cast the real bartender...
KELLY: Oh, really?
ISERSON: ...In this bar. The one in that scene is a stuntman because we - spoiler - do set that pub on fire, but there is a flashback where we cast the real bartender from that real bar as the bartender. When we were scouting location, we were like, well, we can't beat that guy.
KELLY: This show is - it's a total Cold War spy drama. It's also a buddy story, and it's the combination that the CIA station chief uses to get his boss, the CIA director, on board with the idea.
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UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) You want to do what?
ADRIAN LESTER: (As Dane Walter) Sir, one of them speaks Russian fluently, good accent. She could pass. And the other one is fearless, like a bull. Now, I don't know if they could do much alone, but together, they could make a good officer.
KELLY: You have these two CIA officers who have no training, like zero training, and they find themselves landing in situations that I have to think officers who had been recruited and trained in a traditional way would not have found themselves in. How did you think about that? Are you playing that a little bit for laughs?
ISERSON: How we thought about it is that part of the setting and this time period and the research that inspired this show was that the CIA in Moscow in this era wasn't successful. The KGB was following them whenever any officer left the embassy. Like, that was all accurate. So they were willing to try unusual things. And they were also, you know, using the wives in the embassy to do things. What is interesting to me about an espionage story is that it's a way to tell a relationship story. Being good at relationships is being a good spy. You're getting people to trust you. You are finding bonds with people. And that is something that Bea and Twila are very suited for.
RICHARDSON: Yeah.
ISERSON: And that is something that is kind of beyond training.
KELLY: Haley Lu, I hear you saying yeah...
RICHARDSON: Yeah. I'm like...
KELLY: ...Amen. Hop in.
RICHARDSON: I feel so kind of inspired and impassioned about this whole, like, wild concept that something that's untraditional or never been done before could actually be valuable. I had this personal experience where I went on a date, and we were having an OK date. And then somehow we got into a conversation, and he said to me that he doesn't think a woman is capable of or should ever be president.
KELLY: Uh oh. Let me ask - was there a second date?
RICHARDSON: There was not a second date.
KELLY: (Laughter) There we go (ph).
RICHARDSON: But anyways, it really made me think of being Twila and how we started this conversation about, like, strengths, weaknesses, how they come from the same thing and are really the same thing. Both have these untraditional but almost more successful and more valuable instincts and traits than the men that had been doing it for years prior, you know?
KELLY: I have two thoughts. One is, Haley Lu Richardson for president.
(LAUGHTER)
RICHARDSON: I don't know. I would not want to do that.
KELLY: My second thought is just what I think you were going to there, which is that it ends up being the strength of these two women is, A, they're women, and B, they have no training. They're going to play this game in a totally different way...
RICHARDSON: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Than the KGB guys they're up against. And it's because of that that they're so darn good at it.
RICHARDSON: Yeah.
KELLY: So there are lots of twists and turns in this show. I try not to give anything away. It has not been easy, but I will say that things do not wrap up tidily with a neat little bow. So I have to ask - are Bea and Twila going to be back?
RICHARDSON: Don't kill us off, David.
KELLY: (Laughter).
ISERSON: I mean, the plan is that we're back. I mean, if Haley is president, it's going to make it harder to schedule at the time (laughter).
RICHARDSON: Oh, yeah. I don't know how it's going to fit in with my schedule.
ISERSON: But yeah, she might be very busy, but...
KELLY: You could do some good scenes in the situation room. It'll all work out.
ISERSON: Yeah. Provided she loses the primary and we have her back, yes, yes, Twila will return.
KELLY: (Laughter) We have been speaking with Haley Lu Richardson, who stars, and David Iserson, who is co-creator and executive producer, of the new Peacock series "PONIES." This was so fun. Thanks to you both.
RICHARDSON: Thank you.
ISERSON: This was really fun. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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