A peek at PONIES!

"Set in Moscow in 1977, two PONIES, "persons of no interest" in intelligence speak, work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy when 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 American child of Soviet immigrants. Her cohort, street-smart Twila [Hayley Lu Richardson], 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. " --Peacock TV LLC 

We take a quick look with Set Decorator Panni Lutter SDSA and Production Designer Sara K White of some of the personal spaces in the series, the sets that help define the characters. The two stars of the series have expressed their awe and appreciation in several interviews, stating that they could embrace their characters completely once they had walked onto their sets.

In creating the personal spaces for the Embassy staff, Sara notes, “The idea was that there was an apartment building that was put up by the American Embassy to house their workers, which is something that was actually done, and they just laid out the same floor plan for everyone. So, everyone got the same base, and you see the different layers of personalization in each of the characters.”

Note the recurring U-shaped counter as we visit the different apartments, including the photo above.

Twila’s apartment...
Twila has the attitude of “I’ve been here before”, probably because she has, her husband had been posted to Moscow in the past, which meant she was as well, and she knows her world is limited here.

Twila’s apartment. Haley Lu Richardson as Twila. Photo by Katalin Vermes ™©2025 Peacock TV LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Twila’s apartment. The sofa and table immediately bring us into the time and place, along with the ubiquitous ashtray and dripping candle. Courtesy of Peacock. All Rights Reserved.

Twila’s apartment. Bea [Emilia Clarke] and Twila [Haley Lu Richardson] make plans. The textures of the sofa fabric, warm palette, stoneware pottery attest not only to the times but also their growing friendship. Courtesy of Peacock. All Rights Reserved.

Bea’s apartment...
Bea is a newbie here, and pretty much anywhere because she had been entrenched in the scholastic world and is a newlywed, this being her first posting with her husband. Thankfully, she has spoken Russian as well as English all her life, which will help the two with the tasks they have committed to...

Bea’s apartment. The cool greens might represent the newness, the younger woman finding herself. The space has not yet become deeply layered, personalized for her, other than a few books and a sketch. Everything else in place.You can feel her husband’s absence. Courtesy of Peacock. All Rights Reserved.

Ray & Cheryl’s apartment...
Because of limited space onstage, apartments had to be completely switched out. Bea’s became Ray & Cheryl’s...Sarah recalls, “We reused Twyla’s space for Dane’s apartment. He is very disconnected to his personal life. He tries to sort of ignore it, and so, his apartment is quite spare. There's no wallpaper.”

“On the other end of the spectrum,” she continues, “Cheryl is definitely deeply entrenched in the community, perhaps too entrenched. She has spent the most time there, so she has the most fully decorated space, and it's very of the era, wallpaper included! There are also a lot more regional things that she has acquired. So, she has more Soviet items in her home, and we tried to Easter egg some things in there that are more representative of the Soviet aspects that we pulled into her space.”

Ray & Cheryl’s apartment. Note the U-shaped counter, with corresponding chair in foreground. And the distinctive wallpaper! Ray [Nicholas Podany] is speaking with their nanny, Eevi [Clare Hughes] who, as Cheryl suspects, has been planting bugs in their apartment. Courtesy of Peacock. All Rights Reserved.

“We actually did an augmentation of Bea's apartment in order to do Ray and Cheryl's because we didn't have enough stage space.” Both Ray and Cheryl have higher positions at the embassy, which meant a corresponding higher floor apartment, with more elaboration, particularly with Cheryl’s highly defined taste.

Ray and Cheryl, in a reverse shot of their apartment, sitting at their hexagonal dining table with the mirrored wall in the background. Courtesy of Peacock. All Rights Reserved.

Ray and Cheryl’s apartment. Panni explains, “That was not an easy thing to do, because the mirrors had to move, to be easy to use with the camera. Eventually we printed the design on a mirror, and then we went over that with gold paint. This is what I enjoy. It feels way better than just walking into a store and buying it.”

Sasha’s apartment...
And just a peek here at another fabulous set!

Sasha’s apartment. Petro Ninovskyi as Sasha, Emilia Clarke as Bea. Photo by Katalin Vermes™©2025 Peacock TV LLC. All Rights Reserved.

You’ll be able to explore more of this set and so much more with our upcoming Inside the Set with SETDECOR!
Look for it in a couple of weeks...
See you then!