Artjom Gilz and Petro Ninovskyi are the men in a show that’s basically about Bea (Emilia Clarke) and Twila (Haley Lu Richardson). And yet, by the end of the first season of Ponies, which is not your typical spy thriller, both of them have become integral to not just what happens, but what we want to see next. Not an easy thing to do while our eyes are very much on the exploits of two women trying to make it as spies in 1970s Russia.
Fangirlish talked to Gilz, who plays Andrei Vasiliev, a KGB officer in Moscow who is quickly rising through the ranks, and Ninovskyi, who plays Sasha Shevchenko, a Ukrainian KGB defector and engineer, about what it was like acting opposite Clarke and Richardson, what they’d want to see in season 2, and that wild finale twist.
The show, at times, feels more buddy comedy than spy thriller, but it does a really good job of marrying the two. For Gilz, that is something that just translated from the vibes on the set. “We just had fun. We enjoyed each other so much that we kind of unintentionally transferred on screen,” he shared.
“And we spent a great time together. We spent like six months in Budapest, and the main two, Emilia and Haley, set the tone of the work ethic, honestly. And at the same time, they set the tone of this like openness and kindness towards each other. So, I guess it’s kind of definitely transferred on screen.”
Ninovskyi agreed. “It’s just the chemistry of like the combination of like really cool writing and people being able to execute on that writing and then having the chemistry and like having fun with the story and their characters.”
The show is set in the 70s, which feels easier than playing a period drama, but can sometimes be harder. Except, as Gilz and Ninovskyi shared, when you have such a great team as they do… “It is harder, but at the same time, it was easy because we had like, really, really like such an incredible team in terms of hair and makeup, in terms of costumes, and in terms of music and set design. The set design was insane,” Gilz shared.
“I had this experience when I first entered Andrei’s apartment, that it felt like so familiar to me. So, I asked my mom to send me a picture of my grandma’s living room, because I was born in Russia. So, she texted me a picture of me as a little kid. And it looked the same. I was like, how did you do this? Like the research was incredible because, obviously, like hundreds of years ago…. people didn’t know what that looked like. But a lot of people remember the 70s. So, yeah, the attention to detail was phenomenal.”
So were the costumes. And Ninovskyi had one favorite thing. “I was so happy with my shoes most of the time,” he told us. “Usually, I would keep the shoes, honestly, because I kind of like those shoes. They’re very easy, ligh,t and they make me feel like, you know what, like I’m young.”
He is young, in case you’re wondering.
“They make me feel even younger!”
But the show didn’t just do a good job visually; it did a tremendous job with the cliffhangers. And even Gilz and Ninovskyi were shocked. “We kept on getting updated drafts,” Gilz said about the last few episodes.
“We did have a few different drafts throughout the production. So it we kind of got used to what was going to happen. And we were just getting ready mentally because the show was filmed block by block. And so basically, we had a whole time in the world to get ready for those final scenes and prep for them,” Ninovskyi added.
But is this the end? Gilz and Ninovskyi certainly hope it’s not. They even got ideas for what could come next.
“I want to see Sasha alive. I think that will be really fun,” Gilz said. “It will also be fun for my character because all of a sudden, there’s this rivalry that is heightened. And I think that would be pretty, pretty cool. And I would, I kind of want to see like Adrian’s character (Dane Walter), like I want to see more of Vic and Nick (Cheryl and Ray), you know. I love that dynamic as well.”
Ninovskyi had an even wilder idea. “I would want them to move to actually to the whole show, relocate to Berlin. We would actually play on the West and East Berlin, I guess. Or we can go to like South America, you know, like Cuba or something. Or like Vietnam. I don’t know. There’s like so many places.”
“White Lotus.” Gilz joked. “Completely change characters.”
“It would be fun to, like, put these characters in a different kind of context, because there are so many things that are going to change. A lot of the first season has been held on this secret, you know, nobody knows that this is that person. And there’s the KGB, CIA. Nobody knew that. But then it all got suddenly revealed. And like, how do we deal with that?”
“And the next season, you know, what do we do? Because now we know Vic is working for the KGB. Now we know that the CIA… and Twila and Sasha work for the CIA. So now the cards are on the table. What do we do with that? There are so many opportunities and possibilities,” Ninovskyi added.
Hopefully, we get to see them all come to fruition.
Ponies Season 1 is now available to stream on Peacock.
