‘Ponies’ Creators Detail Why Emilia Clarke & Haley Lu Richardson Were Perfect for the Spy Caper

Ponies is a new type of espionage thriller that blends comedy with drama and a few touches of real-life history. The spy series, which has now premiered with all eight episodes on Peacock, centers on two very unlikely CIA sleuths, considered “persons of no interest” (the acronym for which informs the show’s title): Emilia Clarke‘s Beatrice “Bea” Grant and Haley Lu Richardson‘s Twila Hasbeck.

After learning both of their husbands have died under mysterious circumstances in an operation in Moscow, these women decide to join the agency in their own capacities in hopes of finding answers about what really happened to them. Though they have no experience to speak of, they soon find themselves enmeshed in a massive conspiracy and put their own lives on the line as they delve deeper into Russia’s KGB secrets. If that sounds very serious, that’s because the circumstances of the show certainly are grave. It’s their quirky actions and reactions to even the most dangerous moments that add a thick layer of humor to the story, though.

Series cocreators Susanna Fogel and David Iserson decided to take a levity-filled approach to the spy series world for a simple reason: It’s more fun that way.

“We have experience on the comedy side of things and the more serious side of things, and for us, the blending of the two is what makes things entertaining. Being people who engage in our world with humor, and confronting even the most dramatic situations that we encounter in our lives with a sense of humor — even if it’s deflective humor — we try to bring that into our writing, just because those are characters we find relatable,” Fogel explained. “So it’s sort of a throughline in most of what we do. But in a show like this, I think we both wanted to do something that would feel genuinely fun but also have a grounded-ness to it. And so we’re hoping to make something that is like entertaining but not contentless — that can still feel like it’s about something, and it’s elevated, but not in a way that feels like homework, which is what we try to strive for, generally.”

Katalin Vermes / Peacock

“Yeah, this is just how we view the world,” Fogel added. “I think sometimes as writers, and sometimes as television viewers, there is a sense that things belong bifurcated in boxes like, ‘This is serious, and this is light.’ But I think the truth is just how we embrace the world and how we want to make television and tell stories is something that has the just vast spectrum of emotion and humor and seriousness and depth and all of the things that feel like that is just the way that we experience our life, in our world, and how our characters in the going through the most difficult but also the most sort of invigorating moments of their life would experience.”

Nailing that tonal blend wouldn’t be possible, of course, without the right talents leading the charge, but the process of finding Clarke to play the reserved former secretary Bea and Richardson as the lost and oft-ribald Twila was far from a grueling one.

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“Emilia was somebody who we were a fan of but hadn’t seen do this particular role: this particular American, neurotic East Coast kind of period Hollywood version of me role, but she’s an incredible actress. And when we had a meeting with her, it just became so immediately clear that … she was so much more. She was so on that frequency,” Fogel remembered of the former Game of Thrones standout. “It’s just that she hadn’t had a chance to really play that in roles past. That’s not what she was most known for. So she was just the perfect fit for what was on the page.”

David Lukacs / Peacock

Fogel continued. “And then when we met Haley. We obviously knew her from other roles but didn’t have a firsthand knowledge of her in person, and the minute she walked into the meeting, even before she opened her mouth, just the way that she walked, the way that she dressed, the way that she was, we’re like, ‘Oh, well, this meeting is unnecessary, because she clearly has to play this part.'”

Both actresses collaborated with the creators to explore “other dimensions” to their characters, who experience tragedy, mortal peril, and tons of laughter in equal measure. “These are two actresses who have a ton of range, but there’s something essential in each of them that really resonates with what’s essential about the characters they play, which is really exciting, and I think you can see it on the screen. There’s something that crackles about the way that they interpret these women,” Fogel said. With Clarke in particular, the scribes were able to adjust her character’s persona based on what Clarke brought to the screen. “Getting to know her and seeing the specific choices she made and how specifically she played that part, we were able to really tailor it a bit to her voice. We had a lot of scripts written by the time we cast the show, so the actors sort of met us where we were, and then we were able to fine-tune it and really tweak it to bring out what they do best.”

All eight episodes of Ponies are now streaming on Peacock, so buckle up for a thrillride with a whole lot of bumps along the way.

Ponies, Season 1, Now Streaming, Peacock