Twice in her profession Haley Lu Richardson has learn a script and instantly recognized, “I’ve to do that.” The primary time was Kogonada’s 2017 indie “Columbus,” a poignant movie that put Richardson on the map as an actor. The second was “Ponies,” Richardson’s new Peacock sequence, now streaming, wherein she performs Twila, a CIA spy in Chilly Struggle Russia, alongside Emilia Clarke.
“I typically learn scripts and there’s this soul-crushing factor that occurs the place you get 10 pages in and it doesn’t spark something in you, no connection or inspiration,” says Richardson, 30, talking over Zoom from her dwelling in Phoenix in December. Final yr was significantly busy for her, capturing “Ponies” and two movies, and she or he’s nonetheless studying how you can be again in her on a regular basis life with out the fixed stimulation of a set.
She provides, “Once you learn one thing and there’s that spark — it’s so uncommon. Nevertheless it occurred to me once I learn the character of Twila.”
“Ponies,” created by Susanna Fogel and David Iserson, facilities on two secretaries working on the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in 1977. When their husbands, each CIA operatives, mysteriously die in motion, Bea (Clarke) and Twila (Richardson) are enlisted to take their locations. Though they start as novice brokers, each gamely step up and construct an unlikely friendship within the course of. It’s action-packed, thrilling TV, but in addition deeply grounded in humanity and emotion. Twila and Bea are complexly wrought, which is basically what attracted Richardson.
Haley Lu Richardson as Twila, left, and Emilia Clarke as Bea in Peacock’s “Ponies.”
(Katalin Vermes / Peacock)
“I really feel fortunate that I’ve gotten to play characters who aren’t all the identical individual, however I typically play the straight one within the duo,” she says. “As an individual in actual life, I’m very massive and loud and inappropriate at occasions and expressive and delicate and all of these items. So I’ve all the time needed to discover a option to tone myself down.”
With Twila, nonetheless, that wasn’t the case. The character, who’s escaping a bleak previous within the U.S., is loud and generally chaotic, however in a very charismatic manner. Not like Bea, Twila isn’t college-educated and she or he’s far much less poised, which generally works to her benefit. Richardson collaborated with the costume and hair and make-up groups to create a vibrant search for Twila, who favors fur and brights, full with wildly messy hair (it’s not a wig).
“Typically I’ve to strive actually laborious to search out at the very least one factor that tethers a personality to me,” Richardson says. “However once I first learn Twila, I used to be like, ‘Oh, my God, that is me.’ I used to be attempting to suppose, ‘However how can I make her completely different than me?’ It was the other expertise I usually have.”
Clarke, talking individually over Zoom from London, provides, “The skeleton of the character on the web page was Haley. So her filling within the gaps was inevitable. And it was lovely to work with somebody who so totally went to bat for her character.”
Fogel met with Richardson a number of years in the past when she was casting her 2024 movie “Winner.” Though Richardson didn’t find yourself within the film, Fogel saved her behind her thoughts. “She’s such a deep, emotional, intuitive actress who was in these teen films the place the depth and gravitas of her soul weren’t in a position to absolutely categorical themselves,” Fogel says. “I had an inkling that she was able to play an grownup position.”
Clarke joined the sequence early on as a producer and was a part of the casting course of. She remembers Richardson’s title being introduced up and feeling prefer it was a “divine second.” “As quickly as her title was there, we removed each different title on the checklist,” Clarke says. “The primary time I talked to her I used to be like, ‘I simply met my child sister.’ I’ve by no means met anybody like Haley and I don’t suppose I ever will.”
The tangible connection was obvious to Richardson too. “It was essentially the most joyful Zoom,” she says. “I hope this present goes for 50 seasons so I can simply maintain spending days after days with Emilia.”
“As an individual in actual life, I’m very massive and loud and inappropriate at occasions and expressive and delicate and all of these items,” Haley Lu Richardson says. (David Urbanke / For The Occasions)
Richardson moved to Budapest, which stands in for Moscow, the place the present is basically set, in January 2024 and spent six months within the metropolis to movie “Ponies.” Being away for therefore lengthy was a brand new expertise for the actor, though she did reside in Sicily whereas making the second season of “The White Lotus.” It meant fully uprooting her life and in addition specializing in a singular character for an prolonged time frame. The depth of the work was generally a problem.
“We went forwards and backwards between day and evening shoots, which f— Emilia and my immune methods,” Richardson remembers. “We obtained sick like 3 times — I’d be sick, after which she’d be sick after which they might do all my scenes whereas she was sick, after which generally we’d each be sick. We had 18-hour days. It was fixed.”
Regardless of the hurdles, Richardson reveled in taking part in Twila. She felt fully locked in to the character, a girl with an enormous persona, and a fearless, generally chaotic method to conditions. Twila costs in headfirst with out concern for the results, whether or not it’s setting a bar on fireplace to flee the discover of KGB or openly approaching Russian sources. She’s a stark juxtaposition to the extra calculated Bea. However beneath Twila’s confidence is a vulnerability that Richardson aptly tapped into, maybe as a result of it felt a lot like her personal expertise on this planet. Twila is unabashedly herself, one thing Richardson channeled in her latest poetry guide, “I’m Unhappy and Attractive,” even when it means alienating some folks.
“She learns about herself, admits issues and grows all through the present,” Richardson says of Twila. “There’s numerous parallels for me. This has been an enormous theme of my yr, like with my poetry guide — when you’re quite a bit or an excessive amount of or daring and loud there will be individuals who don’t get it or don’t prefer it and disgrace you. There’s quite a bit I discovered from Twila, however the primary factor is feeling free and protected to be all of your self and know that somebody goes to see you and nonetheless love you.”
“She learns about herself, admits issues and grows all through the present,” Richardson says of Twila. “There’s numerous parallels for me.”
(David Urbanke / For The Occasions)
Iserson says Richardson discovered a posh stability in Twila’s psyche that ended up being excellent for the present. “There have been variations of this character the place we might have forged extra of a straight comic, who simply performed into the comedy, or we might have forged somebody who performed extra into the toughness and the trauma,” he says. “Haley is any person who holds either side of this character in a manner that’s so actual. She considered Twila as this absolutely shaped one that she was embodying however who additionally existed and who she beloved.”
Foley describes Richardson as having “an obsessive dedication to a second feeling true.” “She would litigate these moments till they felt true to her, after which they have been so transcendent when she did them,” Foley says. “There’s a perfectionism to her that you simply don’t see as a result of it’s so invisible and seamless by the point she’s performing. You may really feel the precision and it’s spectacular as a result of it doesn’t ever appear laborious.”
Though Twila and Bea uncover new romantic relationships after the deaths of their husbands — Twila’s is especially sudden — “Ponies” is rooted in feminine friendship. Fogel says the characters have been written as foils for one another. Every has one thing the opposite wants, which pulls them collectively regardless of sometimes butting heads.
“The mixed complete of the 2 of them would make this whole, well-rounded and completely useful girl on this planet,” Fogel says. “However they’re every two halves of the entire. Bea leads along with her mind and Twila is all id. She’s like a bull in a china store as a result of she has no filter and has numerous protection mechanisms. Bea has to study to be braver and bolder. For Twila, bravery isn’t the issue. For her, it’s about studying to belief that different folks will love and settle for her.”
“Bea leads along with her mind and Twila is all id. She’s like a bull in a china store as a result of she has no filter and has numerous protection mechanisms,” says Susanna Fogel concerning the characters.
(Katalin Vermes / Peacock)
Clarke notes that Hollywood likes to isolate girls, typically solely recognizing one actress in a selected movie or TV present. However “Ponies” offers Bea and Twila equal house within the highlight and finally concurs that they’re stronger due to their friendship.
“The factor that makes the present so distinctive is that a lot stuff occurs and also you need to watch each episode, however it’s about character,” Clarke says. “Issues occur to the characters, versus stuff occurring after which we meet the characters. The present lives and dies on this relationship.”
Richardson and Clarke developed an analogous friendship offscreen. There wasn’t numerous time on set in Budapest for leisure, however the pair would typically focus on their work or interrogate upcoming scenes whereas of their side-by-side make-up chairs. One vacation weekend, Richardson booked an Airbnb for the forged at a close-by lake and everybody took shrooms collectively.
“I don’t know the way they obtained them into Budapest, however we had a reasonably nice evening,” Richardson recollects. “I swear I used to be not the drug supplier, however I used to be the drug taker.”
Clarke denies being accountable too. “I can’t bear in mind who introduced the mushrooms,” she says. “Somebody did, after which sport over. It was so great.”
After wrapping “Ponies” final summer time, Richardson flew to South Africa to shoot Gore Verbinski’s upcoming sci-fi thriller “Good Luck, Have Enjoyable, Don’t Die,” which she describes as “psychotic however superb.” She then headed to Hong Kong to make a “collaborative experimental factor” with Kogonada, which the filmmaker has since edited right into a film referred to as “zi” that’s set to premiere at Sundance. Within the midst of it, she wrote and launched her guide of poetry.
“I by no means thought I’d write a poetry guide, however in doing that, I really feel like I discovered actual empathy for myself,” she says. “I noticed I can put myself on the market and a few folks will relate and snigger and like it, and a few folks gained’t and I’m nonetheless OK. It was a very cool, releasing expertise.”
“I by no means thought I’d write a poetry guide, however in doing that, I really feel like I discovered actual empathy for myself,” she says of engaged on “I’m Unhappy and Attractive.” “It was a very cool, releasing expertise.”
(David Urbanke / For The Occasions)
Richardson says she’s all the time been open however discerning relating to her profession. She’s not focused on manifesting the right position as a result of she’s undecided what that can appear to be upfront. She merely is aware of it when she reads it. She has nothing upcoming on her slate, though there’s a hope that “Ponies” will reside on past the primary season. It ends on a gripping cliffhanger (and, it’s not a spoiler to say, with Bea and Twila holding arms in solidarity).
“I’ve been having an excellent time recently,” Richardson says. “Performing and with the inventive stuff, I’ve been having enjoyable. I don’t know what my subsequent factor shall be, however it is going to be enjoyable.”
Excavating Twila has basically modified Richardson, calling the expertise profound, creatively and personally, unlocking a brand new layer of appearing for her.
“I do know that appearing is pretend, and we’re taking part in make-believe and saying traces written for us and taking part in a personality who writers create after which actors deliver to life and who actually solely lives on a display screen,” she says. “However taking part in Twila made me notice how actual appearing will be too.”
There’s a sense of “excessive accomplishment” that has lingered since “Ponies” wrapped final summer time. She is aware of she gave herself to the work absolutely.
“I felt exhausted, however I additionally didn’t really feel depleted,” Richardson says. “It was a reciprocal expertise, like the place Twila and the expertise of the present gave again to me. I’m challenged each time I work on a undertaking. My confidence builds.”
She pauses, then provides, “I’m attempting to do that and categorical myself on this manner and discover on this manner creatively for perhaps the remainder of my life. What I do is so private. It’s make imagine, nevertheless it’s additionally actual. It’s important to take your actual coronary heart and emotions and physique and voice and provides it to one thing that’s being created. That’s what I did with Twila.”
