Cold War spy drama Ponies is among the productions competing in the official selection of the 65th Monte-Carlo Television Festival, where creator David Iserson discussed the challenges of making a series set in Moscow amid today's geopolitical realities, TVBIZZ Magazine writes.

The series stars Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson as two unlikely CIA operatives recruited to work in Moscow in 1977. Created by Iserson and Susanna Fogel, the series blends espionage, drama and humor against the backdrop of one of the most tense periods of the Cold War.

During a roundtable interview in Monte-Carlo, Iserson addressed the challenges of making a series set in Moscow at a time when Russia remains a highly sensitive subject internationally. Asked by TVBIZZ whether he had concerns that audiences, particularly in Europe, might be reluctant to embrace a project involving Russia and the Soviet Union, Iserson admitted that the issue was something the creative team discussed extensively.

“Yeah, we definitely had concerns. We just kind of tried to sort of reframe it in our minds, everything that sort of happened with Russia over the course of developing the show, how the show kind of exists in the prism of it.”

He noted that the historical setting of the series naturally places the Soviet Union in opposition to the United States, creating parallels with contemporary geopolitics.

“When it's set, the USSR is the biggest enemy of the United States. It's still telling a story through that in a time when also that is happening again.”

The show's writers also considered how modern Russian politics might influence the way audiences interpret the story.

“And so, as it changes, we thought a lot about Putin and who Putin was in the 70s, and we kind of put some of his biographical information on Andrei, the villain of the show.”

Iserson revealed that the production made conscious casting decisions in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine.

“We also cast a lot of Ukrainian actors, and it was very important to kind of represent Ukrainian sensibility as much as we could for the show.”

He added that the production deliberately avoided hiring actors living in Russia.

“We didn't cast Russians who were living in Russia also. So we were very cognizant of it.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that some Ukrainian performers chose not to participate in the project.

“I think there were definitely some actors, some Ukrainian actors, who wouldn't do the show, even though they didn't disagree with the politics of our show, but they just didn't want to do anything that shone any sort of light on Russia, and I totally understand that as well.”

Another key challenge for the production was recreating Moscow in the late 1970s. Iserson explained that Budapest ultimately proved to be the ideal location.

“We shot in Budapest, which we were able to use a lot of, like, real locations that felt very trapped in the 70s.”

The Hungarian capital's architecture and atmosphere helped the production achieve the authenticity it was seeking.

“We chose Budapest because I'd worked there before. I knew the crews. We got a really good crew there.”

While other Central European cities were considered, Iserson felt they did not offer the right visual character.

“I had worked in Prague, and I think it didn't feel crumbling enough. There was a few aspects that you just... Prague was a little too nice and a little too clean.”

Berlin was also evaluated but ultimately rejected.

“We looked at Berlin, which has Sovietness to it, or has a communist aspect to it, but not Sovietness to it. So that wouldn't have been right.”

Practical considerations also played a role in the decision.

“You're asking actors to leave their home for a long time, and you want to make sure they have comforts and a nice apartment, and good places to have dinner. And I knew all of that existed in Budapest, and I knew the crews, and so I knew that we could pull it off there.”

The choice also gave the production access to a large pool of European performers and authentic locations.

“I think it would have immediately felt fake and false in America. I mean, we were also able to have so much access to European actors, Russian speakers, in a way that I don't think we would have been able to have in America.”

As a result, much of the series was filmed on real locations rather than sound stages.

“As you watch the show, we actually didn't use a lot of sets at all. We built the embassy, we built the girls' apartments, we built the offices, we built some stuff, but it felt like 70% we were on location, which we wouldn't have been able to do if we shot it in America.”

The production's research process also relied heavily on material sourced from Ukraine.

“We had this researcher go into this Ukrainian photo archive and just take all these pictures out of supermarkets and what apartments looked like and what hotels looked like, and so our production designer had all of that going.”

That research informed Iserson's goal of presenting a more nuanced visual portrayal of the Soviet Union than audiences typically see on screen.

“What was very important to us aesthetically is that when you see a lot of Cold War things, it is greys and desaturated and just kind of showing the misery of this time, but when we were looking at it, we saw that, in fact, it was very maximalist. It was patterns on patterns. There would be just lots of clashing and just so much colour, and it just seemed this almost funhouse mirror of the Western view of the 70s, and that was also very important for us to show a different version of what the Soviet Union looked like.”

Iserson explained that the initial idea for Ponies emerged from his fascination with Cold War history and the unusual methods employed by Western intelligence services in Moscow. While researching books about the American and British embassies in the Soviet capital, he became intrigued by stories of intelligence officers turning to unconventional recruits.

“I was reading some books about that era just because that was just an aesthetic that I found really appealing. And the consistent idea that kept coming up when I was reading books about the American Embassy in Moscow and the British Embassy in Moscow was that they were so unsuccessful at running spies and they were just so willing to do unconventional things. And that felt like it lit something up in my brain, that you could tell a spy story about an untrained person because that is something that they were actually seeking out.”

The show's central partnership between Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson proved to be one of the biggest surprises of the production. Iserson said there was no opportunity to test their chemistry beforehand and much depended on instinct.

“The part of just behind the curtain of how you make a TV show is that when you're talking to actors that famous, they don't audition, they don't have a chemistry read with each other to know if they... You just see all their work and you just cross your fingers and hope that they're great.”

He praised Clarke's commitment to mastering Russian dialogue and revealed how demanding the process became.

“She didn't speak any Russian, but she was like, I bet I can do it. And it was so much harder than she had imagined, because it's such a hard language, and she just had spent, she said, every waking moment that she was not, like, shooting or eating, like, she was just learning Russian.”

According to Iserson, the relationship between the two stars became one of the series' greatest strengths.

“We'd cast both of them and kind of put them on a Zoom and just, like, crossed our fingers and hoped that they fell in love, and they did. And I think maybe the show could have worked if they were not, like, instant, like, almost felt like instant sisters for life. But the fact that they did is just something you feel on screen.”

Although Ponies is a spy thriller involving murder, espionage and Cold War tensions, Iserson was determined to maintain a sense of humor without undermining the drama.

“The comedy is... I liken it to the way people make jokes at funerals, that this is just how people sometimes cope with hard things and grief.”

For Iserson, the key was ensuring that every character remained emotionally invested in the story rather than existing solely to deliver punchlines.

“One of the rules that we would make about the comedy is that nobody in a scene ever is there to serve the joke, but a character can make a joke, you know? But every character also has a purpose in a scene.”

Asked why espionage remains such an appealing genre, Iserson argued that spy dramas are ultimately relationship stories with heightened stakes.

“I have an interest in it because I think that... You can tell a spy story about many certain things, but for me, it's a way to tell a relationship story.”

He added that the genre allows ordinary human interactions to become matters of life and death.

“How do you make a date life or death? How do you make a conversation life or death? Like, it just... It is a way to kind of take these very human interactions and make them about something more and greater.”

While no renewal has been announced, Iserson revealed that he already knows where the story would go next.

“I know what it will be. I have it very clearly in my head, and just hoping to get a thumbs up.”

As Ponies competes in Monte-Carlo's official selection, Iserson's comments highlight how the series attempts to balance historical espionage storytelling with the political sensitivities surrounding Russia and Ukraine today, while using Budapest's unique visual character to bring 1977 Moscow back to life.