The Watch - ‘Star City’ Season Finale With Creators Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert. Plus, Emmy Nominations!

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

Andy talks about the most notable surprises and snubs from the 2026 Emmy nominations (2:48). Later, he is joined by ‘Star City’ cocreators Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert to discuss why they felt drawn to making a spy drama in the world of ‘For All Mankind,’ how ‘Chernobyl’ influenced the show, shooting in Eastern Europe, and more (19:06). Subscribe to the Ringer TV YouTube channel here for full episodes of The Watch and so much more! Host: Andy Greenwald Guests: Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert Producers: Kaya McMullen and Kai Grady Studio Production: Sarah Reddy and Jason Arreola Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Wayfair, every style, every home. Sports have to clear the room. Hello, and welcome to the watch. My name is Andrew Greenwald. After all these years, I still retain no official title at the ringer. And I'm here by myself. Our good friend, the man the legend, Chris Ryan, is continuing his listening tour of America. I'm sorry, what's that?

Chris has actually left the country? Very interesting. Wow. Middle America CR has tread north of the border. He claims to do a live podcast with some other show he's involved with. The, what's it called? The big... The small screen?

It's called Movies Now with Sean Fennessee. Amanda Dobbins. No, I hope they're having a good time up there. I do just want people to remember Kami Chris might not be as pure as some of the voters believe him to be. No, we miss Chris. It's a summer of a lot of travel. He will be back on Monday when I will be traveling, not for political purposes, and we will be back together next week. Special Friday show for you today. Oh, and before I forget, you can and should email us at the watch at spotify.com or check us out on the watchpod underscore on Instagram, where Kai is just continuing to do incredible work, highlighting me and my popular opinions.

Special Friday show for a very good reason. Star City on Apple TV, you've probably heard us talking about it week after week. I don't know how many of you have taken the plunge, or in this case, gotten on the orbiter into space. But on today's show, Benadivi and Matt Wolpert, the co-creators, co-creators, co-short, co-show runners of Star City, as well as the sister show for all mankind. Join me. Great conversation.

Great guys. But I really just want to take this moment to implore you again. Whatever cred we've built up with you guys, we're willing to spend some real rubles on this one. This show is dazzling. And if you are someone who started to check it out, who may be a little bit worried about the Soviet era wallpaper period piece, the slow burn of the first few episodes, I can confirm that today's season finale is jaw-dropping in all of the best ways.

It hits all your familiar TV feels and it does things that I've never seen on screen and I loved it. So really excited to talk to them. It is a not super spoilery conversation, a lot of interesting stuff about just production these days and making television in Lithuania, which is where we're all headed if we're lucky. But if you haven't had time to check out the show yet, please do all episodes. are now streaming on Apple. The other reason why I'm eager to talk to you guys today is the Emmy nominations were released yesterday, and it is a special and magical time of year. And as always, the caveat being the Emmys are never going to reflect everyone's personal taste.

We will get into some specific snubs that I think a lot of people around town are feeling. But they are a really interesting snapshot of how the industry views itself. and what is being celebrated and what is being ignored. So I do want to get into a little bit of that. And the main headline for me, and we'll get into some of the subheads, but the main headline for me is, I mean, this is a podcast about Star City, the Apple Corporation, that plucky startup from Cupertino has forced itself really into the mainstream television conversation.

Now, caveats abound. Apple is the richest company on earth, I believe, still. So they can force themselves into any conversation that they want to. They're not playing by the same rules as a lot of the other networks are in terms of what they decide to fund and what they don't decide to fund. The other thing worth noting is that, and this is shocking to me, I actually learned this today. Apple's shows of which we love many of them, we discuss them, about to get into them,

Apple's shows do not qualify for Nielsen's streaming ratings because you have to have 1% of the television audience to qualify. That's actually what we're talking about in terms of niche programming. I believe they're at like 0.8 of a percent currently. So it is a very, very, very small piece of what is still a pretty diffuse pie. But the shows they are making are registering among some viewers, listeners of this podcast, and clearly, clearly, with Emmy voters. So while HBO Max had a typically huge showing with 122 nominations total, and Netflix was second

with 111, and I think some people thought that Netflix might overtake HBO this year, particularly if the final season of Stranger Things caught any kind of fire, listener, it did not. But the real shocker here is that Apple got 89 nominations. And it's not just that it got 89 nominations. It's not like it just cleaned up in the like the secondary tertiary categories. Your best drama. Listeners, your best drama nominations for 2026 are the diplomat on Netflix, the Gilded Age on HBO Max, Night of the Seven Kingdoms on HBO Max.

And by the way, we're not going to quibble over category fraud here. Night of the Seven Kingdoms was dramatic, even though it was also quite funny and 30 minutes long. It was submitted as a drama. Paradise on Hulu, which lull, lull, but like a good one. Lull, The Pit, the reigning champ on HBO Max. And then Pluribus, Apple TV, slow horses, Apple TV, and fucking your friends and neighbors on Apple TV, which honestly respect.

I know, and like a lot of the people who work on that show, and I'm sorry that I'm not joining you on second and soon to be third season. But, wow, that drew some eyeballs, especially because what often happens with, I don't want to say fringy your shows, because it's a pretty mainstream and well-promoted show. But I never had the sense that it had crossed over into as much of a mainstream conversation

as to warrant a nomination like this. Usually what happens is the most identifiable part of the show. In this case, Emmy winner John Hamm will get nominated while the show itself might not get nominated for a few years. Weirdly, this is your friends and neighbors only Emmy nomination. John Hamm was not nominated. But I think that speaks to the outsized role that Apple is playing

behind the scenes here. Now, I'm not saying it's like old school golden globe stuff. I'm not saying it's payola, but Apple is definitely paying. They are paying a premium for really, really highly regarded content. They are making deals with big stars

as they have since the beginning. They are optioning hot properties. But I think the more subtle thing that they're doing that is pretty impressive is they definitely are meeting audiences where they are and not putting up too much that demands a lot of adventure. Now, it's big enough of a service at this point

to make that comment while also covering Star City, which, as I said, is a very, very niche kind of show and hopefully we'll be finding an audience. But, you know, I think it's not just the success of your friends and neighbors. It's Margot's Got Money Troubled,

which was submitted, which we thought was sort of like a literary adaptation mini-series, limited series, and is actually submitting and getting nominated as an ongoing comedy series. So Apple is here, and Apple is not going anywhere unless Tim Cook decides to make cars instead, and then it'll all go away.

But I don't think that's going to happen. Specific numbers for shows, The Pit leads all nominees with 25. Any single person you've ever seen on the Pit was probably nominated. It's probably a safer bet. Special shout out to what are their names? Brittany Allen who played the cancer mom and Jeff Cobur who played Duke, the motorcycle guy with a heart of gold and lungs full of, I don't know, tumors. They were great on the season. And interestingly, they had to self-submit and still got a nomination.

What that means is, like even giant well-funded Emmy productions like The Pit and with HBO behind them, there's a decision as to who they are going to submit for each category, this actor or this actor. and particularly when it comes to guest slots, they had to pick and choose. I think institutionally they put up the actor who played Louis, and he was rewarded with the nomination, but Brittany, Alan, and Jeff Cooper had to nominate themselves, and it worked, which is great for them and also a sign of the,

at this point, honestly, truly unique monocultural dominance of the pit. It is, I think, not based, I'm not, I know I brought up Nielsen earlier. I don't know what to make of any of those numbers generally. The pit is the biggest show on TV, I would say, from the perspective of the way we talk about TV on this pot. It's the one that everyone has an opinion about. Everyone watches.

And it's kind of steering the larger cultural project of the medium at this moment. So 25 for the pit. 24 for hacks, a show that is nominated for comedy. The bear was not. This was the final season. The Emmys have loved this show so fiercely and so dearly. I worry about how the Emmys are going to do without it.

And the Emmys, the only thing the Emmys love more than Hacks is honoring a final season of a show. So 24 for Hacks, really creating the possibility that between these nominations and the surprising number of nominations for DTF St. Louis, that HBO could score the rare treble. That's a term I made up for when a network wins the big ones, drama, comedy, and limited. FX made a big play for that

a few years ago when they moved Shogun into the drama category and they won for drama and comedy with the bear. And I think that was the year when Fletchman's in trouble was up for Limited and they didn't win.

Pull in for the trouble for somebody. A couple other nice things that happened. the nicest being a little show called Widows Bay cleaning up. 19 nominations. And I think that if you had polled anyone a week ago, this wouldn't have been a surprise. But if you had pulled anyone two months ago, everyone would have said, widows what? It's an incredible story. Obviously, we love the show here.

I think it's still my favorite show of the year. We had creator Katie DiPold on the show along with director of Hero Marai, and both of them are nominated. And sometimes it just feels good when something. takes over the popular imagination. It takes over the industry. It has a huge approval rating from everyone. And then you get that kind of like cascading effect of nominations. So it's not just that obviously Matthew Reese was nominated, but all your favorite characters, Wic, Patricia, all nominated. But also Dale Dickey, who plays Rosemary nominated. Betty Gilpin and Hamish Linklater nominated for guesting on the episode. And here's the crazy thing.

Season 1 of Widows Bay was so not on the Emmy radar for Apple that its first season spanned the eligibility window, which correct me if I'm wrong, and I told you the email address at the top, I believe episodes from season one later in the season can be nominated for next year's Emmys because I don't know the production schedule, but there's a chance that, I would say a good chance,

considering it's July, that the second season of Widows Bay will not be on the air by May. So I imagine that's not totally unprecedented, but it's still pretty cool and pretty wild to see. Matthew Reese, by the way, a rare double nominee, also nominated for The Beast and Me. And happy home in Brooklyn, because Carrie Russell was nominated for the diplomat. We love it when nice people succeed. A couple other things that was nice to see. Yaya Abdul Mateen nominated for Wonder Man, Best Actor in a Comedy.

Very, very high bar to climb, I think, for Marvel shows to get Emmy recognition. was the last to get any. Some would argue the last to deserve any. But Wonder Man really, really was a good show. And I do think it probably got a little extra bump because just like with the Oscars over-rewarding movies about movies, Wonder Man is about the entertainment industry and how hard it is right now, even if you don't have superpowers. I'm wrong, by the way. The bear was nominated for a comedy series this year, but a lot of the actors were not nominated. And this is for season four, meaning we have to do this whole thing again next year. I.O. Adebri was the only actor nominated, I think Jamie Lee Curtis and the late Rob Reiner nominated for guest.

Here are your comedy nominees. Abbott Elementary. Funny show. The bear. That's funny. Hacks. Okay. Margo's got money troubles.

Sure. Nobody wants this. Only murders in the building. Shrinking and Widows Bay, which I think sort of has to be the favorite at this moment. The only snub that I would put there, take out the one you like least. and the rise and fall of Reggie Dinkins on NBC really deserved some love there. It's probably the funniest show on TV, and the whole season is streaming on Peacock. Okay, a couple other snubs.

Task was nominated in some categories. Actors were recognized, Mark Ruffalo, not nominated for drama series. Does beg the question if it would have fared better if it had been submitted as a limited, but as season two is currently in production in my beloved hometown of Philadelphia, not eligible. I do wonder if Task will build more institutional support in its second season, partly because, as was announced today, Friday, we're in a shared universe, people. I mean, I'm from this area, so I know that things get really messy and incestuous, but officially, Task is in the Mayor of Easttown universe.

Julian Nicholson will be appearing in Season 2 of Task, playing the same character she played in Mayor. who else could be showing up in the future? I don't know, maybe gritty. Other snubs, the big one in this room, among the young people I work with, industry. I still, saying this as obviously a day one fan of the show, worried that it was a bridge too far, mainly because we're talking about a voting body that really likes your friends and neighbors. No disrespect to them,

but your friends and neighbors, like I was saying before, and Margot's got money troubles, meet the audience where they are. And I do think the majority of the Emmy voters are not going out all night with a bag of gear and like a classic train spotting soundtrack.

Wait, sorry, that's my dream. I don't think people are going out in London the way that the characters are. And so it doesn't mean the doors closed. There's one more season. And as I was saying before, like, Emmys love a finale story. But I just think the groundswell of support that industry felt this year critically and certainly institutionally, I don't know how hard HBO pushed them for Emmys in the past. I think that's something to build on. And I would not be surprised to see like Marisa Bella or Mahala nominated

or Kit Harrington nominated next year for the final season. If I could be mayor of Hollywood, I would have liked to have seen some love for the lowdown, the great FX show with Ethan Hawk from the brilliant Sterling Harjo. But again, like, that's the kind of show where when you see these snubs list, I'm like, I just didn't really imagine a world where that was getting the popular support within the Voting Academy, but it is worth noting. I was really happy to see Beef Season 2 nominated so heavily. I know the second season was contentious to some, even people who loved the first season,

but I think I like the second season more. and acting nominations for Carrie Mulligan and Charles Melton especially are super deserved. It's bad luck for Kaylee Spaney, who maybe got forced out of a tougher category. The one nomination that I wish I could make happen in the acting categories, I mean, obviously Tim Simons hitmaker, like you can't make nobody wants this without him. But the other one would be Anthony Starr for his five years as a homelander on the boys. The boys did have an Emmy moment. Shockingly, it was nominated for Best Drama Series a few years ago, and I think whatever cultural momentum it had then may have stalled a bit by the time the

last season came out, but his performance was unbelievable, and he remains one of the more underrated actors on TV, and I'm excited to see what he does next. Night of the Seven Kingdoms, really good, thought maybe you would get some acting nominations. It didn't, but the great Dan Romer, who did a beautiful job on the score of that show, did get nominated. That was cool to see. I honestly, like, for all of the praise and the sort of dark arts that are attributed to HBO head Casey Blois for getting into the conversation and racking up these Emmy nominations every year, the fact that he got this many Emmy nominations for DTF St. Louis creator Stephen Conrad. It's a fucking magic trick worthy of Hogwarts, which is eligible next year, by the way. So kudos to everybody. The Emmys are a fun party.

I wouldn't read too much into them, but it is a fun party, and it's always better to celebrate the things they get right. I didn't even mention 18 nominations for Pluribus. Very hard to do as a new show on a network that has 0.8% of television landscape. Better to focus on the good things than the disappointing things, because there are always going to be more of those to find. So there you go. We are going to get into my conversation with Ben and Matt from Star City.

I would just say, again, do yourself a favor and watch the show, particularly if you're finding that some of your other faves are going off the air for the summer or you haven't found a next thing to watch. It's really excellent. And I was hoping we could do something dramatic, like announce a season two pickup here on this podcast. But, you know, much like Soviet state-controlled media, Apple keeps this stuff tight, close to its vest.

I don't actually know. But maybe that's empowering, guys, because maybe that means you can turn off this podcast. Just kidding, keep it playing in the background for the rotations, for the spins. What do we call them? Plays and watch Star City, because you actually could affect the show's future. And doesn't that feel good? Doesn't that feel good to have an interactive, empowering moment? Thank you to Kaya and Kai for getting me through this.

And we will be back. Well, Chris will be back on Monday. And I'm sure he will have some honestly provocative things to say about socialist life north of the border. And I'll be back to talk to you guys next week. so please enjoy my interview with Matt and Ben, not that Matt and Ben, the Matt and Ben that makes Star City. I am so thrilled to be joined in studio now by Ben Nadevi and Matt Walpert. You say the T. It's not a silent T. The co-creators and co-show runners of the brilliant Apple TV series Star City, which we are talking about having just concluded the first season. Guys, welcome. Welcome to the watch. Thanks so much. Really happy to be here.

I, we were just discussing the fact that we briefly met each other 10 years ago and then you were on probation for a decade until until you made the show. And now here we are. So thank you. Yeah, came out of hibernation just for this. I'm really glad we get to talk about the season in its entirety. The finale is, I believe, per my notes, so sick. But I want to specifically get into how you pulled this feet off. The eye of this needle couldn't be finer to thread. It's a spin-off of an already pretty dense. kind of niche sci-fi show. Except this one is said in the Soviet 1960s. So can you talk to me a little bit about the origin of the project, both from what sparked your interest in telling this side of a story that you told the other side of and For All Mankind? And then maybe there was a moment where you were like,

oh, we could actually do this practically. You know, researching for all mankind the first few seasons, there's a lot that goes into that show in terms of, you know, the research, the history, even though we're changing history, we kind of, it's really important to us to get it right. And the more we were reading and hearing about the Soviet space program, it was blowing our minds what we were reading. Like, it's the kind of stuff that you couldn't believe these things actually happened.

And it wasn't stuff we could put into for all mankind because the show was more, you know, focused on the American space program. Right. And the difference really was that everyone sort of knew about the American space program. I mean, there are countless books, documentaries, articles about the Apollo program. Whereas the Russian program, I mean, almost nothing is known. And even in our research, it was hard to find things out. But we just felt by, you know, I think after a year or two of kind of talking about it and just being in shock about what we were reading was, I mean, we got to talk. We got a, there's something here.

Yeah. So, yeah, we were slowly talking to our partners at Apple and Sony about the idea. And we think there's something here. It's a different genre. It's a different show. And, you know, thankfully, they kind of agreed. Yeah. And then the irony was we got them hooked on it and we were kind of starting to develop the idea.

And then Putin invaded Ukraine. And we were like, so that kills that project. And but, you know, we kept talking to Apple and they were like, well, we actually think this could be even more relevant now than ever, which credit to them for that point of view, because that's a brave point of view to have as a network. and so we just kept working on it. And I think to Ben's point, like the thing we felt like it was very important to us that this project felt completely different and unique for all mankind. Otherwise, creatively, it wouldn't have excited us to do it.

You know, we don't want to just do like a, oh, it's it's for all mankind, but just the other side. It's just a mirror. Like that would have been boring to us. So the fact that the Soviet program was so secretive and that, you know, in for all mankind, so little is known about what they were doing. It felt like we had a freedom to explore,

or stories where you don't know what's going to happen to these characters and these missions because of the secrecy. When did you realize that it was an espionage show on top of everything else?

Really early on, actually, because I think if there was something that defined that program, and honestly, the country at that time was everything was being watched. And I think that's, I think the key thing

that's separated it from For All Mankind early on. It was like, you know, Fromankind is focused on the astronauts and the engineers. That's the brunt of the beginning of that show. To us, this was the intelligence

and kind of what was going on behind the scenes was fascinating. And it felt like an opportunity to kind of almost dip our toes into a different genre. I mean, even, you know, Reese Yvans, our lead actor, I remember he read the script. He said, I don't think I've ever seen a spinoff that's a different genre than the show. It's spun off. Yes, totally. And I think that was what attracted us. You know, I think we've looked, since we were, you know, in college, I think doing a spy thriller in the Cold War is kind of a dream project for anything.

Any writer. Yeah. Exactly. So we definitely, like, back. into that a little bit. We were like, this is our chance. Let's use for all mankind to tell the spy through whatever we always wanted to tell you. On behalf of all men in their 40s, thank you. But additionally, what was so exciting about discovering the show week to week in the early going was that, yes, you are playing with a playbook that is familiar and beloved, but I've never seen

a spy show in which the, you know, it is people versus their own government, for example. Yeah. And then secondarily, I've never seen a spy show in which a mole can flee to Venus. So it's really Using the space, as our actor friends would say, that was pretty exciting. Yeah. No, and, you know, there's a ton of spy shows out, right? I mean, it's the hot thing. So I think you're right on some level. We knew right away we're doing a different kind of spy show.

Right. This is immediately because it's about space and the space program and spying, it immediately separates it from everything else. But also, I have to say, the type of spying that we were attracted to was not do. We didn't want to do like a James Bond type thing. I think that's not our thing. I think for us, you know, we love, I mean, Like Lives of Others is one of the movies that for us stands out as one of these movies that stayed with us all the time.

And I think the difference with that was it really explored the character, the dynamics of not just listening to other people, but the cost that has on your psyche and on the people, not just the people being listened to, but the people doing the listening. And I think that was fascinating. No, it was like the humanity of these characters on both sides and the situation they find themselves in and how, like how does humanity, how is it affected by living in a system like this? I think that's what we really wanted to explore, especially with the. the arena character and what does that do to you when you're when you're in somebody's life somebody else's life and and you know that's why I love that scene in episode three where she goes into this apartment that she's been like listening to for a long time and then she's kind of having these flashbacks I think she heard and it feels almost transgressive and exciting but also she

feels guilty and like it's just very messy and human and I think that's kind of what we were trying to do with it now was for example was the arena character a way in for you? Did you have a particular person, not in terms of actor, but one of these characters, an anchor character that you were excited to explore, I, you know, I am relatively ignorant of the deep for all mankind lore. So I know some characters are pulled from that show as well. I didn't know if there's one particular way in. The arena character was one of those ways in because the Star City started to kind of take form as we were working on season four for all mankind. And so we were consciously telling the story.

We introduced her as an older character who was very kind of, you know, ominous and foreboding. And then we were like, now we get to tell the origin story of how somebody becomes like that. And so we were conscious of setting that up and then backing into kind of the more human part of her. And we actually wrote the pilot in Bulgaria as we were shooting those scenes.

And so we were kind of steeped in that Eastern European and feeling at the time, it was, it was kind of a perfect timing for that. A lot of borsh, a lot of meat and potatoes. I feel like you guys have been very forthcoming in other interviews. You talked about the influence that the Chernobyl miniseries had. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that because, you know, even just on the basis of the conceit of this is Russian but spoken in British stage accents, that works.

Like that is a proven track record now that we understand that. I was wondering the role that that show played for you both creatively, but also in terms of production and actually, like, as we were joking before, boots on the ground. Yeah, a huge rule. I mean, I'd like to think we're in a weird way part of the Chernobyl universe now.

Poor Adam DeGydeus must be like, I'm English. Would you like to see me like a men's national jersey drinking a pint? No, I did that, you know, first of all, the show blew us away like it did most of the world and anyone who watched it. But I think more than anything, the quality of it, just watching it,

how it really felt like you were in that place in time. So one of our first things when we were looking at doing the show is like, where do we do this? We're like, let's do it wherever the hell Chernobyl did it. And I think Lithuania quickly stood out, not only because that's where they did the show, but it's Eastern Europe, a lot of the people on our crew, their parents, they lived this existence. So you were talking to our producer, Lynette, people we knew there who could tell us directly, no, no, that wallpaper's wrong. Or that, the toilet would not be in the same room as that.

They knew these details inherently, and that added a whole other level to the production. In terms of the accents, I think that was honestly one of the toughest decisions. I mean, early on in the process, we definitely explored and considered the idea of doing it all in Russian. Because, you know, in the end, that would be amazing if you could pull that off, right? I mean, that would be the most authentic version. Find yourself in Tim Cook's office. Just explain me. Trust me.

Trust me. Yeah. But, you know, the reality of it is just so impossible. And then even doing the Russian accents, which it's so hard to pull those off. And in the end, we struggled with it. And we actually called at some point Craig Mason just to be like, let's talk to it. And we said, what went into that? Why did you decide to go this way?

And he was very blunt with us. He's like, don't even think about it. Just do the British accents. And not even British accents, but I think for us it was European. Because we have actors actually from also non-UK. The great David Denshick. That's right. We wanted to work with him for a year.

Like, we've been trying to find a role for him for five years. Top of the lake. families like ours he was just in. He's always great. Oh, yeah, Tinker Taylor. Like, he's just, and he's friends with Joel Kinneman. And so we had met with him a while ago, and we'd just been constantly trying to work with him. But to Ben's point, it was like, we told Reese, Ifans, like, use your Welsh accent.

Like, you know, because there's regions within the Soviet Union, like someone from Moscow doesn't sound like someone from Siberia or from Kazakhstan or all these places. So felt like it added a layer of a. of even more authenticity and like capturing the sort of pastiche of the Soviet people. There's even like a socioeconomic thing with the accents.

I mean, we didn't dive into it too far, but it does convey something, the accent you have, the more posh you are. There were these differences in Soviet society as well. So we tried to play into that as well as much as we could.

But in the end, we didn't want the actors to be doing just accent work the entire time. These are incredible actors. I mean, we knew what we had. And we said, let's make the best

of who we have here. So we covered a little bit the historical interest in the in the the period and the details and you're talking about how just you know by being there you got the aesthetics and regional things right. I'm curious about how you pursued the the cultural feeling and by that I mean this is something I talked about when we were reviewing the or discussing the penultimate episode. I kept coming back to that sense that Joseph Davies plays so beautifully in that brutal scene in his apartment of indignity. Yeah. which is a very amorphous term to throw it an actor. But what the show builds over its season is that feeling of ultimately that's what defeats you.

You know, you can get angry, you can be sad, but that hollowed out feeling. And I wondered how you chased the versimilitude of that emotion. No, it really is the kind of inevitability of the state on some level. And that as much as you can try to tilt at the windmills of that, like there is a few, utility to it on some level. But on the same side, like one of my favorite scenes in the season is that scene between Sergei and the chief designer in the truck. Yeah. Where Sergey is just beside himself, he's betrayed, you know, the state has really won over this guy. And the chief designer says, like, we still sent somebody to Venus and they can't take that away from us. And to me, that's the,

that's the counterpoint to that moment in the apartment, which is like a real low for him, is like, he still did something that, you know, as a human being, he can have pride in. And I think that's the the real struggle in that type of authoritarian system where there's this Russian movie called Leviathan also, which is amazing. And that really captured that as well, where like, as much as one person is trying to fight against the power of the state, they're almost helpless. But you can still, it's human nature to keep striving at that. I think it speaks also to the, really brilliant job you guys did in constructing a season because the moment you're talking about Matt in the finale with the chief designer and Sergey is in some ways an echo of another scene of

indignity in the pilot where the chief designer gets his metal in an empty room and there is no sense that anything will be remembered or seen and at least these two share something and it's about being seen and heard and remembered right in a communal way exactly it's really the struggle of tv writers I think that's what we're talking about. Please, please see this. At least you guys are in a room together, weeping, you know. Star City is an allegory for TV writers. In dignity, we suffer in the system.

The dirty truth is all TV shows are allegories for TV writing. That's what the money is for. Famously, that's David Chase and Matt Warner. The suitcase that whole episode is basically, yeah, about the writing process. God, you'll never let me out of this room, Sopranos Season 4 or whatever it was. I wanted to talk to you about two specific pieces of casting that certainly make the show what it is.

One was Anna Maxwell Martin as Roscova, who's a type of monster. I don't know if we've seen before on television. And that's saying something in an era where there's like literally a monster's universe on your streaming network. Right. And Alice Engler as Anastasia, who is a type of heroin, I'm not sure I see very often, you know, in the sense that she's sort of halting and uncertain and a lot of it, what she gives is interior. Yeah. Can you talk about the casting process of those characters and how they shaped, of those actors and how they shaped the characters that you had, that existed. only in your mind. I'm glad you picked

out those two in particular because I think those were the key, some of the key casting in the show. And I think Anna, also even a fan of forever. And it's insane to me how little known she is outside the UK. She's quite famous in the UK. She's considered royalty, like acting

royalty in the UK. And outside, her name isn't as familiar, but anyone who's seen as work would not be surprised by the performance she gives here. And nor were we. But I have to say, like, her approach to this character from the more early conversations, we knew she could do it, but I think what we all wanted is to do a different type of villain and not just play into the cliche of this, because it so easily becomes a caricature if you do this wrong. And I think the

nuance she brought from, honestly, her background in comedy, I think more than anything, what we've learned, you know, over the years is if you've done comedy, you can do anything. Yes. Whether you're a writer, an actor, whatever, and I feel because it gives you this flexibility and a freedom. And she'd be on set, like cracking jokes. Like making everyone laugh, like just fooling around. And then within second, okay, let's roll. And she's now with a gun in her hand, yelling and terrifying. That's the talent you're dealing with. When you have that kind of talent, the key thing I think in your role is just to let them do what they need to do. And she understood early on what was entailed here. And sort of like, as the season progresses, you know, the layers come out

more and more of that character. Whereas with Alice, and what she brought, you know, to Anastasia, that was sort of the key casting for us because, like, Anastasia is the one that starts the whole show. And you wanted someone that almost in the beginning is in the background.

You're not even paying attention to her. It worked. She might as well, yeah. And you cast the, is it Katarina, the woman who's going to go into space, you cast that so brilliantly as well. She's so dynamic. Exactly.

You can't take your eyes off. Exactly. It's also, I think with both of those characters, what's interesting to us is the arc over the season with both of them because with Ludmilla, we really put all our chips in on making her a monster in the beginning and making her like the most intimidating person.

But in our writing process, we think a lot about, well, how is that human being made into that? And her experiences in the war and there's all these references. And then in the last two episodes, we were like, okay, roll up our sleeves. And like, okay, now let's humanize her. Yeah. Let's try to.

But Anna, like, she was, I think this is something a lot of actors don't have. She has the patience to, like, be the bad guy for enough time that when you humanize and you earned it. Yeah. And I think with Alice as well, like seeing her start to become more confident in herself and understanding the power that she actually does have. Like, she probably has more power than almost anybody because of her, how famous she is. Yeah. And her face is everywhere. And she's starting by the end of the season to kind of come to terms with that.

And you see that she just, that's seen with her and David Denchik, where she's like talking back to him in a more confident way. And he says like, oh, you've grown. Like she is, and what's fascinating is Alice is so like the opposite of Anastasia. She's just this kind of like overflowing with joy and passion. And like, and yet she captured that. That's all like she just put that all inside the shell. You know, that's really fascinating performance. Acting.

Yeah. I mean, go figure. But Moodymilla slapstick arc season two is that weird? The outtakes? It's just like an Ian E&G movie or something. It was hard. I got it. There were times like, okay, we are doing a dark drama here set in the legion.

She would just be cracking jokes left. Which in a way, it was a blessing, you know? Because the, you know, in like drama, especially comedy is so appreciated. Yes. But she is the one that I would not have expected she's the cut up. She's the problem. She's doing the Apatau alts. Oh, it's 100%. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows.

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Please play responsibly. The other challenge of the show, of which I'm sure there are many, to me, would be how much of it has to come together off the page. Because you guys are here and you have a room and you're carrying the spirit of what you think the show could be. But so much of it depends on very specific location scouting, on production design, art direction.

Someone has to do Building 12 and make it look like that. and then shoot it to understand how it's working like that. I couldn't get over that you built like an emotional crescendo of an episode around Joseph Davies writing algebra. That's veteran showrunnership, honestly. If you're just like, trust us, we'll pull this off. I can't decide if it's a question more about the process or about whatever confidence or skills you've gained in your time

working on for all mankind that allowed you to trust to that degree. The run we've had between Fargo and For All Mankind was very helpful because these are two unique shows where every season is a totally new story, new characters, new world in certain ways. That's unique to television. So I think it's prepared us for basically like, okay, jump in, how are you going to re-c—and to not be precious. Yeah. But as you know, I mean, this job is exhaustive, and we were doing this. We were running this at the same time as we were running for all mankind, and we were back and forth between Lithuania. He would be there.

I would be here. We would be swapping every two weeks. We were constantly... I didn't know what time zone I was in at a certain point. I was waking up at 3 in the morning in L.A. Up all night in Lither. It was crazy. But at the same time, I think we had such a passion for this show.

We couldn't believe, honestly, that we were allowed to make this show. We constantly kept feeling like our KGB was like, are they going to pull the plug? Are they really letting us do this? So this was the veneer emission. You really were ready yourself in the show. Lithuania was our Venus. Yeah. And, you know, it's that thing.

I mean, there's a quote, I say a lot. Lina Waith said this about show running. Like, it's being beaten to death with your dream. And I love that line. Because I think it captures what this job is that, yes, we're doing what we love. So you can't complain, oh, man, it's hard. Oh, we're flying the Lithuania. I mean, we're creating these worlds and doing things that as a kid, I would be amazed that we're doing.

But it is, it is all-encompassing. And if you don't feel strongly about it, you don't do the hard work, then it doesn't work. And I think the other key to that is, is like Ben and I had such a clear vision of what the show should feel and look like at the beginning. And then we found people

that really got that vision. Nick Murphy, our director of the first two episodes, Paul Spriggs, the production designer. Incredible. Steve Oster, our producer over there. Brendan Oigama, the DP, all these guys and Nicole Fishnaller, our costume designer, like they all were pushing in the same direction.

And so when we weren't able to be there every second of every day, you had people you could trust. Because you can't do this alone. I mean, there's no possible way to do that. But it really is important. Like if you're doing this and everybody isn't working toward the same goal, it's not going to be good at all. In fact, what I appreciate about a lot of these people we worked with is there were times they would push back on us in terms of like, I remember our makeup, you know, they were like, because we early on, we said, no makeup. It's got to be accurate. And then you get there, like, okay, maybe a little, maybe.

This is kind of, but she. This is giving Lithuania in winter. Hold on. I mean, maybe a little something. But they held our feet to the fire sometimes. Like, no, no, no, this was what you said. Yeah. You wanted the, you wanted the real.

You wanted the, this is what's the, the truth is you asked for me because you had just gotten off the plane. A little help here. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. No, but they, it is incredible team. And I think they also saw what we were going for and we're excited about it. Yeah, they bought in.

Yeah. See, this is, this is, this is, this is, this is, kind of like deeper showrunnership. But like I was so impressed with the way you guys played with time in your story. You know, anyone who had any passing familiarity with for all mankind, even if they haven't gone deep into the seasons, knows that the show jumps forward and knows that there is a full spectrum of this alternate history to draw from. Knowing that going in and maybe even you guys knowing what the audience's preconceived notions might be,

the fact that the episode, I don't know if it's four or five that ends with, with Arena discovering the perfume picks up instant pickup the next episode, was I thought, really bold and exciting and also really destabilizing because then when Veneura seems to be an absolute ruin, then you jump seven months. And I wonder how much time you give to thinking about time. Too much time, thinking about time, honestly. But I think part of it is just you have to kind of let the story tell you what it needs

and not fall into patterns. You know, and so it just, it felt like four needed to go right into five. And I think one of the things we've taken is like, this show is a slow burn, but there's a version of this show that's a really slow burn where like you don't get to the stuff that happens in four. Like, Arena doesn't find out until almost the end of the season who the mole is. And it's like we felt like, you know, the story took us to this place of like, let's get to each big moment and kind of like change the world. and so that you never know where you're going to, where the ground's going to shift. Yeah, it's funny because I remember episode six in particular when we finished writing that. We're like, I mean, that's sort of the end of the season, isn't that?

I mean, isn't that a great ending of a season? I'm like, what the hell are we doing now? Like, restarting the engine with two episodes left was quite a challenge, I remember, because we felt like. Yeah, we were like, this could be a mistake. Yeah. This could be a big mistake. Which is honestly the best parts of writing when you're in that place. place of, you know, this could work or not work, but let's go for it, you know, at some level.

This is specifically what I wanted to ask you about, because in my experience, talking to writing teams, one of the greatest advantages of working with someone is you have someone next to you pushing you. Yeah. Being like, no, go bigger. Go bolder. You ask where you could go after ending the season in episode six. I'll tell you, you'll have an aggrieved wife rescue her husband from fucking space.

Yeah. Yeah, you don't get there. So is that a correct read on? an aspect of your collaboration to push each other to go bigger. Yeah. Or Boulder. No, no, I think it is. It's that and it's someone you can check in with.

You know, I think there are constant moments. It's really interesting, though, because I think we both, we have such a similar point of view generally, but there's probably like 20% that we see differently and then we have those conversations, arguments maybe, where we work it out. But like I remember in season two of All Mankind, we were with the Gordo Tracy duct tape run, that was another moment where we were like, we were sitting on set and watching these actors run around in duct tape

and being like, there's a 80% chance this is awful and silly. And yet we looked at each other and were like, but when we thought of this, it was good. And yes, it might, and we can. It's a check.

It's a gut check with each. Yeah, there's a moment of like, I rely like, we're not crazy. This is going to work. And I think in a way, I don't know how anyone does this job alone, by the way. I mean, the whole thing is collaboration. So we've had a writer's room of two since we began.

So, yeah, it's incredibly helpful, especially with the two shows going at the same time, especially when you are doing something like this where, you know, oh my God, episode six suddenly became a finale. Because I think the other thing with television, at least the way we do it, we never really know the ending until we're in it. And I think it's scary because you're like you're shooting the first few episodes. You have not written the last episode. And I think that fear actually does something interesting.

It creates a lot of anxiety. You lose hair. No, it kind of allows you to react to what you're seeing happening on screen and in the dailies and with the actors. Instead of being like, no, no, do what I have set out. Suddenly we're reacting to what we're seeing in the first two episodes. I think that's the beauty of TV. It can be reactive.

That's right. It can be intuitive. You can sort of, you can enter a flow state. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly what it is. And it's especially when time is getting short.

You know, and you're, I mean, I think almost every finale of both for All Mankind and Star City, we've written, like, we've delivered it like almost right when production or maybe even a little after. But there is, there's something about the fear in your stomach and the sort of time pressure that you get out of your own way a little bit. Yeah. You know, and I think some of our best writing has been in those. What's the anecdote you would give with the baseball play? Oh, it was El Duque and on the Yankees. He had this thing in the world. I don't remember what year it was, but it was in like the late 90s.

He said, like, I felt the pressure, but I felt no fear when he had like pitches for the first time in the World Series. And I think that's the, you know, the key to it is you can't get overwhelmed by it, even if you're under great pressure. I mean, he also defected from Cuba. So I feel like he has a different relationship. Hey, we went to a film school, right? That was hard. Alone, go out together. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's so interesting that you guys, I mean, it's the role of the showrunner to understand what the characters are thinking at every moment.

what the wallpaper should look like. But also, you have to trust that the show that you've built that can succeed in miniature of arena touching wallpaper can also allow for a Venusian self-sacrificial implosion. Like, you guys did that too. And it was super earned and incredible because I have never seen that before. Yeah. And make it feel like the same show, I have to say. That's what I mean.

Because it's one thing for all mankind, it's getting to a point where, you know, frankly, we weren't like sci-fi guys before For All My Kind. I mean, everything in Hollywood's like, what do you write? Yeah. We started in comedy. Fargo was sort of comedy drama, so it's kind of perfect for us. But then For All My Kind came up like, we're not sci-fi guys. But I think in a way, it's not just a sci-fi show.

And I think coming to this, it was like, wait, is this a spy show? Is this a sci-fi show? Like, I think if there is our bread and butter, we can't divide. Yeah, exactly. But I think what was important to us is whenever you're in a space mission on this show, and we kept emphasizing this, even in the designs of the ships, how the ships look. We didn't want to feel like a different show.

We wanted to feel like this is a different kind of prison up there. And the thing that guided us a lot was like in a way as difficult, you know, for all mankind, you know, space is dangerous.

And on this show, I feel like what's more dangerous is getting back from space. Yeah. And I love what you just said because I was thinking, there was a moment in watching the finale when I was like,

my first thought was, my God, what does that cabin smell like? But my second thought was like, how could anyone, let alone two people survive nine months in a tin can. And then I realize you've given us a show that answers the question.

Yeah. Because they've spent their whole lives and some version of isolation. They're more prepared for it than anyone. Than anyone, totally. Yeah. It's really cool thematically. Most of my questions that I have remaining are about like, what more? Do you, I know you can't confirm or deny anything.

I imagine that you have thoughts about what future seasons of the show could entail. For sure. Do you envision it similarly to For All Mankind and that we'll get like Go-Go Gorbachev, or are we focused more theoretically on these characters? I think one of the things that we're most excited about is not doing the time jumps. On both like a personal mental health level and also just on a creative level that we don't have to deal with prosthetics or anything like that. But it really is like like you were saying with episodes four and five.

Like we want to keep in this world and just keep telling this story in the immediate sense. And you know, it's been so great to see how many people. people out there are really responding to the show and loving it. And I can't wait to keep telling those stories. What's the real estate market like in Vilnius? Like, do you guys, is there, or can you convince Delta to do a direct flight? Like, I just want to make this easier for you. I'd kill for a direct flight.

That would be, that would be a game changer. It would be your mile status must be pretty elite right now. That's the one thing that was keeping me going. It's like, can I get lounge access? Like, what, I can tell you about every lounge in the Frankfurt airport. Oh, is that every, yeah, if Frankfurt, if you want to learn about the Frankfurt airport, that's like a, I think that's the, I think, That's like hell, in my opinion.

No, Frankfurt's airport is hell on earth. Yeah, I will say. If you want to experience hell, that's the closest you're going to get in our earth. Because my experience in like covering and talking to like Tony Bourdain and then also people who worked with him, what was so interesting, although in retrospect kind of makes sense, is that near the end of his, not just his life, but like making the television show, is that he would get to the most exotic place and then send someone out for Pizza Hut. that like he's like I don't have to be that person all the time.

I need to carry some of the comfort with me. I wondered what your Frankfurt airport or Vilnius late-night pizza hub was. We had to reference this in From Mankind too. Or like whenever I'm traveling overseas, there's always one day where I go to get McDonald's. Yes. And I think, or am I allowed to say McDonald's here? I mean, okay. This is one of you saying it already.

So we were actually shills for the McDonald's Corporation. This is what this all. Really, that's what Starr's say is all about. Genuinely, it's what those cosmonauts would want. Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And when the first McDonald's opened, it was like euphoria.

Better than going to Venus. Yeah. So even, but there is something about the taste of home, and it's strange when you're in Lithuania in the winter for months. And I love the food. I love the culture. But I have to say, there's only so many variations of meat inside potatoes or potato inside meat that a human can handle.

They, they had discovered donuts recently in Lithuania. Yeah. But the problem is they were then trying to make it, like the, like the, Lithuanian version of a donut. So it was like, pickled herring and stuffed donut. And I was like, this is not, we're not quite getting it. You're not quite getting it. This is really helpful context for me because when I was feeling, oh, I'm homesick in London,

should I go to Dintai Fung or Egg slut today? You know, it's not exactly the same. No, it's funny too because when we talk about Lithuania, like a lot of the people here, it almost felt to them like we're going to Siberia. And it's actually a beautiful first world country, part of the U.S., part of Europe. Honestly, I fell in love with that place. It's such, Vilnius is such an amazing city and countess. And, like, it's really a beautiful country.

And the people there are so nice, you know, and it's, it was a great experience other than all the, you know, the travel was honestly what killed us. Did you ever catch any British actors being like, oh, I've got an hour and a half to Gatwick, staring down the barrel of that commute. Oh, yeah. They all, it's funny, because they all kind of fell in love with it in their own way. It kind of, what being away from their homes and being away from your homes sometimes does also, you create more of like a unit, a family unit. Sure. Because you have to rely on each other. Yeah, but the place, I mean, it's also, I'd always wanted to go there because my grandparents

had met there in the ghetto, actually. And I remember when we first got there to scout it, the guy who was showing us around, he kept saying like, I can't wait. He looked at me. He was always like, I can't wait to show you the ghetto. You'll see what we did with the ghetto. It's amazing. And I was like, what did you do with the ghetto?

And we arrived. And it was like, it was like fancied up, you know, like gussied up. They clasped up the ghetto. Look at this. Look at what we did with your ghetto. I'm like, yeah, it's wonderful, it's beautiful. But it was a bit surreal because, you know, now the, the hippest part of a lot of these old Eastern Europeans are the ghettos because they were like, you know, cobblestone streets, really narrow, really cool. And now they're the center of life.

Should have walked around being like, my culture is not your costume. It's just like telling my grandparents' generation that like, yeah, I mostly hang out on the Lower East Side. And they're like, why? Yeah, get out. You exist because we got away from there. Right. What are you still doing? What's wrong with you?

That's hilarious. That's exactly what my grandparents are saying. like, get out of there. Go to where the golf club is. We did this for, you idiot. All right. So can't confirm or deny anything, but the hope is that will be more Star City. In the meantime, there is more for all mankind, and that's next on your docket.

Is that correct? Yeah, we are heading to Bulgaria to shoot some, and we're toward the end of the last season. Yeah, it's really crazy. I got to say, I did get it in no disrespect. to a show that I admire and I will return to, but when I did hear from your publicist that you were going back to Eastern Europe, I was like, oh, yeah.

I didn't realize that you had like multiple stops. Multiple Eastern Europe. You're across a lot of the former workshop. I'm not kidding when I say, we are soon to be the experts on Eastern European film spots. Incredible. Well, that's pretty much where we're all going to be

filming soon anyway. I mean, it sounds, unfortunately, it does sound that way. But it is quite a feat, you know, to this time and day to finish a show. any show from the beginning. Because even when we were pitching for All Mankind, honestly, I don't think that show gets made

in any other time and place as it when it was. It's such a weird idea. Huge sci-fi based on no IP. And the fact that we're now getting to the end of it is quite incredible. So we definitely feel the weight. I mean, we also feel the exhaustion and burnout. I think a lot of the show creators feel

was getting to the end of their shows. But it has been cool because it's a show, honestly, that's been shooting in Los Angeles for the most part since the beginning, which is also so rare. You guys nailed it. I know. We got lucked out. We lucked out.

I know. Last ones on the gravy trade. I know. No, and honestly, it does. It was sad like the last few weeks on set, you kind of felt like, you know, are we ever going to shoot here again, you know? And that feel, that really was. Yeah, it was emotional.

Yeah. Because this crew, these people we love that we've worked with, they've done so much. Like, it is that feeling with this. We can't just let this go. So hopefully, hopefully things turn around. Did you tell them about the Frankfurt airport? That will help L. That will help the L.A.

In the transition. But guys, thank you so much. I can't say enough about this show. I think it's really a special show. And I think the accomplishment is just incredible. Really congratulations. Thank you very much. And thanks for joining you.

This was a lot fun.