The White Lotus actress Haley Lu Richardson is set to star in Peacock’s espionage thriller Ponies, joining previously announced Emilia Clarke in a series regular role.
Peacock has recently ordered Ponies straight to series, with Clarke set to play the role of Bea. It is co-created by Susanna Fogel (The Spy Who Dumped Me) and David Iserson (Mr. Robot).
In addition to starring, Clarke will serve as one of the executive producers alongside Jessica Rhoades (Station Eleven), Fogel, and Iserson, with Katherine Bridle and Alison Mo Massey as co-executive producers.
What is Ponies about?
According to Deadline, Richardson will be playing Twila, “a small-town girl who is as abrasive as she is fearless.” The upcoming spy thriller will follow two Ponies (persons of no interest) as they work together to unravel a Cold War conspiracy.
“Moscow, 1977. Two “PONIES” (“persons of no interest” in intelligence speak) work anonymously as secretaries in the American Embassy. That is until their husbands are killed under mysterious circumstances in the USSR, and the pair become CIA operatives,” the series description reads. “Bea (Clarke) is an over-educated, Russian-speaking child of Soviet immigrants. Her cohort, Twila, is a small-town girl who 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.”
Richardson is known for her performances in The Last Survivors, The Young Kieslowski, The Edge of Seventeen, Split, Columbus, Operation Finale, Support the Girls, Five Feet Apart, The Chaperone, Unpregnant, Montana Story, and After Yang.
She most recently starred as Hadley Sullivan opposite Ben Hardy’s Oliver Jones in Netflix’s rom-com Love at First Sight.
Clarke, on the other hand, is best known for her role as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones. Her other credits include Spike Island, Dom Hemingway, Terminator Genisys, Me Before You, Voice from the Stone, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Above Suspicion, Last Christmas, Secret Invasion, and The Pod Generation.
Ponies is produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group.