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

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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:12Andy Greenwald?

  Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Andy 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. And 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 Kai, what's it called? The big, the big pic?

• 2:47Speaker 06

  The Small Screen?

• 2:48Andy Greenwald?

  It's called Movies Now with Sean Fantasy and Amanda Dobbins. So 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 watch pod 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.

• 3:32Andy Greenwald?

  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, Ben Nadeevi and Matt Wolpert, the co-creators, co-showrunners 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,

• 4:17Andy Greenwald?

  I can confirm that today's season finale is jaw-dropping in all of the best ways.

• 4:25Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 4:58Andy Greenwald?

  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,

• 5:31Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 5:53Andy Greenwald?

  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 just actually learned this today.

• 6:08Andy Greenwald?

  Apple's shows, of which we, you know, 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.

• 6:46Andy Greenwald?

  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 or 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

• 7:29Andy Greenwald?

  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 lol, but like, a good lol. 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 the 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 fringier shows because it's a pretty mainstream and well-promoted

• 8:12Andy Greenwald?

  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 Jon 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. Jon 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.

• 8:57Andy Greenwald?

  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 will be finding an audience. But I think it's not just the success of Your Friends and Neighbors. It's Margot's Got Money Trouble, 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.

• 9:42Andy Greenwald?

  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...

• 10:06Andy Greenwald?

  What are their names? Brittany Allen, who played the cancer mom, and Jeff Coburn, who played Duke, the motorcycle guy with a heart of gold and lungs full of, I don't know, tumors. They were great on this 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 they, I think institutionally, they put up the actor who played Louis, and he was rewarded with a nomination, but Brittany Allen and Jeff Coburn had to nominate themselves,

• 10:51Andy Greenwald?

  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 pod. 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.

• 11:34Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 11:44Andy Greenwald?

  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, I think that was the year when Fleischmann's in Trouble was up for limited and they didn't win. Pulling for the trouble for somebody. Couple other nice things that happened.

• 12:29Andy Greenwald?

  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 polled anyone two months ago, everyone would have said, Widows what? It's an incredible story. Obviously, we love the show here. It's, I think it's still my favorite show of the year. We had creator Katie Dipold on the show along with director Hiro 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.

• 13:10Andy Greenwald?

  So it's not just that, obviously Matthew Rees was nominated, but all your favorite characters, Wick, 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 one 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

• 13:55Andy Greenwald?

  not be on the air by May. So I don't, I imagine that's not totally unprecedented, but it's still pretty cool and pretty wild to see. Matthew Rees, by the way, a rare double nominee, also nominated for The Beast in Me and Happy Home in Brooklyn because Keri Russell was nominated for The Diplomat. We love it when nice people succeed. 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. WandaVision 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,

• 14:40Andy Greenwald?

  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 A. Debré 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, Margot's Got Money's 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

• 15:24Andy Greenwald?

  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

• 16:08Andy Greenwald?

  things get really messy and incestuous, but officially, Task is in the Mare of Easttown universe. Julian Nicholson will be appearing in season two of Task, playing the same character she played in Mare. Who else could be showing up in the future? I don't know. Maybe Gritty.

• 16:28Andy Greenwald?

  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 are 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 Trainspotting soundtrack. Wait, sorry, that's my dream. I don't think people

• 17:12Andy Greenwald?

  are going out in London the way that the characters are. And so it doesn't mean the door is 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 Harington 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 Hawke from the brilliant Sterling Harjo. But again, like, that's the kind of show where, when you see the snubs list, I'm like,

• 17:54Andy Greenwald?

  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 two nominated so heavily. I know the second season was contentious to some, even people who loved the first season, but I think I liked the second season more. And acting nominations for Carey 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

• 18:37Andy Greenwald?

  for his five years as Homelander on The Boys.

• 18:42Andy Greenwald?

  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 he would get some acting nominations. It didn't, but the great Dan Roemer, 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 Bloys 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.

• 19:24Andy Greenwald?

  Louis creator Steven 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. And 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

• 20:08Andy Greenwald?

  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 Kaia 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

• 20:51Andy Greenwald?

  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 make Star City. I am so thrilled to be joined in studio now by Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert. You say the T. It's not a silent T. The co-creators and co-showrunners 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.

• 21:24Speaker 06

  Thanks so much. Really happy to be here.

• 21:25Andy Greenwald?

  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 you made the show. And now here we are. So, thank you.

• 21:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, I came out of hibernation just for this.

• 21:37Andy Greenwald?

  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 feat off. The eye of this needle couldn't be finer to thread. It's a spinoff of an already pretty dense, kind of niche sci-fi show. And except this one is set 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'd told the other side of in For All Mankind? And then maybe there was a moment where you were like, oh, we could actually do this.

• 22:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 22:14Andy Greenwald?

  Practically.

• 22:15Speaker 07

  You know, researching For All Mankind, the first few seasons, there's a lot that goes into that show in terms of the research, the history. Even though we're changing history, 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 in For All Mankind, because the show was more focused on the American space program.

• 22:42Speaker 06

  Right.

• 22:42Speaker 07

  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, 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 had to talk. We got a, there's something here.

• 23:06Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 07

  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 thankfully, they kind of agreed.

• 23:19Speaker 06

  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.

• 23:30Speaker 06

  And we were like, so that kills that project. And, but, you know, we kept, we kept talking to Apple and, 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 from 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

• 24:12Speaker 06

  Mankind, so little is known about what they were doing, it felt like we had a freedom to explore stories where you don't know what's going to happen to these characters and these missions because of the secrecy.

• 24:22Andy Greenwald?

  When did you realize that it was an espionage show on top of everything else?

• 24:27Speaker 07

  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, you know, and I think that's, I think the key thing that separated it from For All Mankind early on was like, you know, For All Mankind is focused on the astronauts and 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, Reece Ifans, 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 spun off.

• 25:02Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, totally.

• 25:03Speaker 07

  And I think that was what attracted us, you know? I think we've, look, since we were, you know, in college, I think doing a spy thriller in the Cold War is kind of a dream project for, I think, any, any writer.

• 25:13Speaker 06

  A man of a certain age, perhaps. Exactly. So we definitely like backed into that a little bit. We were like, this is our chance.

• 25:19Speaker 07

  Let's use For All Mankind to tell the spy thriller we ever, we always wanted to tell.

• 25:22Andy Greenwald?

  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, using the space, as our actor friends would say, that was pretty exciting.

• 25:50Speaker 07

  Yeah. No, and you know, there's, 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.

• 26:00Speaker 06

  Right.

• 26:00Speaker 07

  This is immediately because it's about space and the space program and spying. It's 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.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  Right.

• 26:12Speaker 07

  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 the difference with that was it really explored the character, the dynamics of not just listening to other people, but the 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.

• 26:33Speaker 06

  No, it was like the humanity of 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 of things 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.

• 27:12Andy Greenwald?

  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 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 was one particular way in.

• 27:32Speaker 06

  The arena character was one of those ways in because the the Star Cities started to kind of take form as we were working on season four of 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 and then backing into kind of the 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 feeling at the time. It was it was kind of a perfect timing for that.

• 28:14Speaker 07

  A lot of borscht, a lot of meat and potatoes.

• 28:16Andy Greenwald?

  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, the even just on the basis of the conceit of this is Russian but spoken in British stage accents. That works like that. 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.

• 28:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, a huge role. I mean, I'd like to think we're in a weird way, part of the Chernobyl universe now.

• 28:50Andy Greenwald?

  Poor Adam Nagias must be like, I'm English. Yeah. Would you like to see me in like a men's national jersey drinking a pint? Because.

• 28:58Speaker 07

  No, I did that, you know, first of all, that show blew us away like it did most of the world and anyone who watched it. But I think more than anything, the 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 was like, where do we do this? We're like, let's do it wherever the hell Chernobyl did it.

• 29:16Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 07

  And I think Lithuania quickly stood out, not only because that's where they did the show, but the it's Eastern Europe. A lot of the people in our crew, their parents, they were they lived this existence.

• 29:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 07

  So you were talking to our producer, Lynetta, people we knew there who could tell us directly, no, no, that wallpaper is wrong. Or that.

• 29:34Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 29:34Speaker 07

  The toilet would not be in the same room as the that, you know, 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.

• 29:57Andy Greenwald?

  Find yourself in Tim Cook's office just explaining like, no, no, no.

• 30:00Speaker 07

  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, you know, we struggled with it and we actually called at some point Craig Mason, just to be like, let's talk to. And we said, what? 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, 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.

• 30:29Andy Greenwald?

  Great David Denchick.

• 30:30Speaker 06

  That's right.

• 30:31Speaker 07

  The man, we wanted to work with him for a year. Like, we've been trying to find a role for him for five years.

• 30:35Andy Greenwald?

  Top of the Lake, Families Like Ours, he was just in. He's always great.

• 30:39Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Tinker Tailor, like, he's just, and he's friends with Joel Kinnaman. And so we had met with him a while ago and, and we've just been constantly trying to work with him. So, but to Ben's point, it was like, we were, we told Rees-Efons, 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 it felt like it added a layer of, of even more authenticity and like capturing the, the sort of pastiche of the Soviet people.

• 31:12Speaker 07

  There's even like a socioeconomic thing with the accents. I mean, we didn't, I've been too far, but it does convey something, the accent you have, like, the more posh you are. And there were these differences in Soviet society as well. So we tried to play into that as well, as much as we could.

• 31:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 31:26Speaker 07

  But in the end, we didn't want the actors to be doing just accent work the entire time. We wanted, these are incredible actors. I mean, we knew what we had and we said, let's, let's make the best of who we have here.

• 31:36Andy Greenwald?

  So we, 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, 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.

• 32:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 32:05Andy Greenwald?

  Which is a very. Amorphous term to throw at 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 verisimilitude of that emotion.

• 32:22Speaker 06

  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 futility to it on some level. But on the same side, like one of my favorite scenes in the season is that scene between Sergey and the chief designer in the truck.

• 32:43Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 32:44Speaker 06

  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, 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, the power of the state,

• 33:28Speaker 06

  they're almost helpless, but you can still, it's human nature to keep striving at that.

• 33:32Andy Greenwald?

  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 medal 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.

• 33:57Speaker 06

  Exactly.

• 33:58Speaker 07

  It's really the struggle of TV writers. I think that's what we're talking about.

• 34:00Speaker 06

  Please, please save us.

• 34:02Andy Greenwald?

  At least you guys are in a room together weeping, you know?

• 34:05Speaker 06

  Star City is an allegory for TV writers. That's okay.

• 34:07Speaker 07

  In dignity, we suffer.

• 34:09Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 34:18Speaker 07

  The suitcase, that whole episode, basically, yeah. About the writing process.

• 34:21Andy Greenwald?

  God, he'll never let me out of this room. It's Sopranos, season four, or whatever it was. I want to talk to you about two specific pieces of casting that certainly make the show what it is. One was Anna Maxwell Martin as Raskova, 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 monsters universe on your streaming network.

• 34:39Speaker 07

  Right.

• 34:40Andy Greenwald?

  And Alice Engler as Anastasia, who is a type of heroine 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.

• 34:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 34:51Andy Greenwald?

  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?

• 34:59Speaker 07

  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 we've been a fan of forever. And she, it's insane to me how little known she is outside the UK. I mean, she's.

• 35:13Andy Greenwald?

  She's quite famous in the UK.

• 35:15Speaker 07

  Considered royalty, like acting royalty in the UK. And outside, you know, her name isn't as familiar, but anyone who sees, who's seen her work would not be surprised by the performance she gives here. And nor were we, but I have to say like her approach onto this character from our 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.

• 35:49Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 35:50Speaker 07

  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. And when you have that kind of talent, the key thing I think in your role is just to let them, let them do what they need to do. And she, she understood early on what, what was entailed in it 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's the one that starts the whole show.

• 36:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 07

  And you wanted someone that almost in the beginning is in the background. You're not even paying attention to her.

• 36:36Andy Greenwald?

  It worked.

• 36:37Speaker 07

  She's might as well, yeah.

• 36:38Andy Greenwald?

  And you cast the, is it Katerina, the woman who's going to go into space? You cast that so brilliantly as well. She's so dynamic.

• 36:44Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 36:44Andy Greenwald?

  You can't take your eyes off her.

• 36:45Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 36:46Speaker 06

  It's also, I think with both of those characters, which 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, like how. But in our, you know, in our writing process, we, we think a lot about, well, how is that human being made into that? And, 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.

• 37:19Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 06

  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, be the bad guy for enough time that when you humanize them, you earned it.

• 37:31Andy Greenwald?

  Yep.

• 37:32Speaker 06

  And I think with, 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.

• 37:48Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 37:48Speaker 06

  You know, 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 scene with her and David Denshick, 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 but and yet she captured that it's all that's all like she just put that all inside the shell you know that's really fascinating performance.

• 38:22Andy Greenwald?

  Acting.

• 38:23Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:23Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, go figure, but Mood Milla slapstick arc, season two, is that where you're?

• 38:29Speaker 06

  The outtakes?

• 38:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 38:32Speaker 07

  It was hard. I got it. There were times where like, okay, we are doing a dark drama here set in the Lego and she would just be cracking jokes after, which in a way was a blessing, you know, because the, you know, in like drama, especially comedy is so appreciated.

• 38:46Andy Greenwald?

  Yes, she but she is the one that I would not I would not have expected she's the cut up, that she's the problem.

• 38:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 38:52Andy Greenwald?

  She's doing the epitaph alts.

• 38:53Speaker 07

  Oh, it's a hundred percent.

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• 41:53Andy Greenwald?

  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 have, 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, 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 showrunner shit, 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

• 42:37Andy Greenwald?

  in your time working on For All Mankind that allowed you to trust to that degree.

• 42:42Speaker 07

  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 gonna like, and to not be precious. 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. Matt, he would be there, I would be here. We would be swapping every two weeks. So we're constantly, I didn't know what time zone I was in at a certain point. I was waking up at three in the morning in LA, up all night in Lithuania. It was crazy. But at the same time, you know, I think we had such a passion for this show and this content. We couldn't believe, honestly, that we were allowed

• 43:27Speaker 07

  to make this show. We constantly kept feeling like, our KGB was like, are they gonna pull the plug? Are they really letting us do this?

• 43:33Andy Greenwald?

  So this was the veneer mission. You really were writing yourself into the show.

• 43:36Speaker 07

  Lithuania was our Venus. Yeah. And you know, it's that thing. I mean, there's a quote I say a lot, Lena Waites said this about showrunning, like, it's being beaten to death with your dream. And I love, I love that line. Because I think it captures what this job is, that yes, I'm doing, we're doing what we love. You know, so you can't, you can't like complain, oh, man, it's hard. Oh, we're flying to Lithuania. I mean, we're, 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, do the hard work, then it doesn't work.

• 44:12Speaker 06

  And I think the, 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, our director of the first two episodes. Paul Spriggs, the production designer. Steve Oster, our producer over there. Brendan O'Gama, the DP, like all these guys. Nicole Fishnoller, 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. And so, but it really is important, like, if you, if you're doing this and everybody isn't working toward the same goal, it's not gonna be good at all.

• 44:57Speaker 07

  No, 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 gotta be accurate. And then you get there, like, okay, maybe a little, maybe, this is kind of, but she-

• 45:13Andy Greenwald?

  This is giving Lithuania in winter.

• 45:15Speaker 07

  Hold on, I mean, maybe a little something, but they held our feet to the fire sometimes. Like, no, no, no, this is what you said.

• 45:21Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:21Speaker 07

  You wanted the ugly, you wanted the real, you wanted the, this is what's-

• 45:24Andy Greenwald?

  The truth is, you asked for makeup, because you were just gotten off the plane.

• 45:27Speaker 07

  A little, a little help here, come on, yeah, yeah. No, but they, it's incredible team, and I think they also saw what we were going for and were excited about it, too.

• 45:36Speaker 06

  Yeah, they bought in.

• 45:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 45:38Andy Greenwald?

  See, this is, this is kind of like deeper showrunner shit, 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 From 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 Arena discovering the perfume, picks up instantly, instant pickup, the next episode, was, I thought, really bold and exciting, and also really destabilizing, because then when Venera seems to be in absolute ruin, you jumped, then you jumped seven months.

• 46:23Andy Greenwald?

  And I wonder how much time you give to thinking about time?

• 46:27Speaker 06

  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-

• 46:36Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 46:36Speaker 06

  And, 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 till the, 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 gonna, where the ground's gonna shift.

• 47:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, we, 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 it? I mean, how, isn't that a great ending of a season? Like, what the hell are we doing now? Like, restarting the engine in a, with two episodes left was quite a challenge, I remember. Because we felt like-

• 47:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, we, we were like, this could be a mistake.

• 47:31Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 47:32Speaker 06

  This could be a big mistake.

• 47:33Speaker 07

  Which is honestly the best parts of writing. When you're in that place of, you know, could, this could work or not work, but let's go for it, you know, at some level.

• 47:41Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 47:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 47:50Andy Greenwald?

  Being like, no, go bigger, go, 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.

• 48:00Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 48:01Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, you don't get there. So I want, is that, is that a correct read on an aspect of your collaboration to push each other to go bigger?

• 48:10Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 48:10Andy Greenwald?

  Or bolder, maybe.

• 48:11Speaker 06

  No, no, I, I think it is. It's, it's, it's that and it's someone you can check in with. You know, I think there, 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.

• 48:30Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 48:30Speaker 06

  Uh, uh, where we work it out, but, but a lot, like I remember on, um, in season two of For All Mankind, we were with the Gordo Tracy duct tape run. That was another moment where we were like, this, 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.

• 48:49Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 48:49Speaker 06

  And and we 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.

• 48:57Speaker 07

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

• 49:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 07

  And I think it's scary because you're like, you're you're shooting the first few episodes. You have not written the last episode. And I think that fear actually does something interesting.

• 49:39Speaker 06

  That's a way to put it.

• 49:40Speaker 07

  It creates a lot of anxiety. You lose hair. No, um. It kind of allows you to react to what you're seeing happening on screen and in the dailies and with the actors. And 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.

• 49:53Andy Greenwald?

  I think that's the beauty of TV. It can be reactive. It can be intuitive. You can sort of you can enter a flow state.

• 49:59Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 06

  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 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 is a 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, you know, and I think some of our best writing has been in those.

• 50:26Speaker 07

  What's the anecdote you would give with the baseball player like?

• 50:29Speaker 06

  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 the key to it is you can't get overwhelmed by it, even if you're under great pressure.

• 50:49Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, he also defected from Cuba. So I feel like he he has a different relationship.

• 50:52Speaker 07

  We went to film school, right? That was hard. Yeah.

• 50:54Andy Greenwald?

  Alone or together?

• 50:57Andy Greenwald?

  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 and 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.

• 51:17Andy Greenwald?

  Like, you guys did that too. And it was super earned and incredible because I have never seen that before.

• 51:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 07

  And make it feel like the same show, I have to say.

• 51:27Andy Greenwald?

  That's what I mean.

• 51:28Speaker 07

  That's like, because it's one thing with For All Mankind, it's getting to a point where, you know, frankly, we weren't like sci-fi guys before For All Mankind. I mean, everything in Hollywood is like, what do you write? You know, and we started in comedy.

• 51:39Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 07

  Fargo was sort of comedy drama, so it was kind of perfect for us. But then For All Mankind 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, it's like, we can't.

• 51:53Andy Greenwald?

  You get it wrong?

• 51:54Speaker 07

  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.

• 52:07Andy Greenwald?

  Yes.

• 52:07Speaker 07

  Up there. And, you know, the thing that guided us a lot was like, in a way, as different, you know, in For All Mankind, you know, space is dangerous. And on this show, I feel like what's more dangerous is getting back from space.

• 52:18Andy Greenwald?

  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 realized you've given us a show that answers the question.

• 52:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 52:37Andy Greenwald?

  Because they've spent their whole lives in some version of isolation.

• 52:41Speaker 07

  They're more prepared for it than anyone.

• 52:42Andy Greenwald?

  Than anyone, totally.

• 52:43Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 52:44Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 52:56Speaker 06

  For sure.

• 52:56Andy Greenwald?

  Do you envision it similarly to For All Mankind and that we'll get like, go-go Gorbachev eighties? Or are we focused more theoretically on these characters?

• 53:05Speaker 06

  I think one of the things that we're most excited about is not doing the time jumps.

• 53:09Andy Greenwald?

  Nice.

• 53:10Speaker 06

  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, we want to like. 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 out there are really responding to the show and loving it. And I can't wait to keep telling those stories.

• 53:38Andy Greenwald?

  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.

• 53:45Speaker 07

  I'd kill for a direct flight.

• 53:46Speaker 06

  That would be, that would, that would be a game changer.

• 53:48Andy Greenwald?

  Your mile status must be pretty elite right now.

• 53:50Speaker 07

  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.

• 53:56Andy Greenwald?

  Oh, is that for every, yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 07

  If Frankfurt, if you want to learn about the Frankfurt Airport, that's like, I think that's like hell, in my opinion.

• 54:03Speaker 06

  No, Frankfurt, Frankfurt's airport is hell on earth.

• 54:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:06Speaker 06

  I will say.

• 54:07Speaker 07

  It's, if you want to experience hell, that's the closest you're gonna get in our, in our earth.

• 54:11Andy Greenwald?

  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 like 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 comfort with me. I wondered what your Frankfurt Airport or Vilnius late night Pizza Hut was.

• 54:38Speaker 07

  We had a reference this in from my kind too, or like, whenever I'm traveling overseas, there, there was always one day where I'd go to get McDonald's.

• 54:44Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 54:45Speaker 07

  And I think, or am I allowed to say McDonald's here?

• 54:46Andy Greenwald?

  I mean, look, one of you saying it already.

• 54:49Speaker 07

  So, we were actually shills for the McDonald's corporation. This is what this all, really, that's what Star City is all about.

• 54:55Andy Greenwald?

  Genuinely, it's what those cosmonauts would want.

• 54:58Speaker 06

  Oh, 100%.

• 54:59Speaker 07

  Like, oh, yeah. No, and when the first McDonald's opened, it was like euphoria.

• 55:03Speaker 06

  Better than going to Venus.

• 55:04Speaker 07

  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.

• 55:18Speaker 06

  They, they had discovered donuts recently in Lithuania.

• 55:23Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 55:23Speaker 06

  And, but the problem is, they were then trying to make it that, like, the Lithuanian version of a donut. So it's like pickled herring stuffed donut. And I was like, this is not where the donuts should be, guys.

• 55:34Speaker 07

  You're not quite getting it.

• 55:35Andy Greenwald?

  This is really helpful context for me because when I was feeling, oh, I'm homesick in London. Should I go to Din Tai Fung or Egg Slut today? You know, it's not exactly the same.

• 55:43Speaker 07

  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 UN, part of Europe.

• 55:54Speaker 06

  Honestly, I fell in love with that place. It's such, Vilnius is such an amazing city and Kounis and like, it's really a beautiful country. And the people there are so nice, you know, and it's, it was, it was a great experience. Other than all the, you know, the, the travel was honestly what killed us.

• 56:10Andy Greenwald?

  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?

• 56:16Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 07

  They all, they all, it's funny because they all kind of fell in love with it in their own way and 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 there because you have to rely on each other.

• 56:27Andy Greenwald?

  Like summer camp.

• 56:28Speaker 07

  Yeah, but the place, I mean, you know, it's also, I had always wanted to go there because my grandparents had met there in the ghetto, actually. And I remember when, when, uh, when we first got there to scout it, the guy, the, the guy who was showing us around, he kept saying like, I can't wait, he looked at me and he's always like, I can't wait to show you the ghetto. Look, 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. There's a Gucci, look at this, look at what we did with your, with your ghetto. I'm like, yeah, it's, 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 European places are the ghettos because they were like, you know, cobblestone streets, really narrow, really cool. And now they're the center of life.

• 57:10Andy Greenwald?

  Should have walked around being like, my culture is not your costume.

• 57:12Speaker 07

  It's 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.

• 57:19Speaker 06

  You exist because we got away from there.

• 57:21Speaker 07

  Right. What are you still doing? That's hilarious. That's exactly what my grandparents would say, like, get out of there. Go, what? Go to where the golf club is. It's what we, we did this for, you idiot.

• 57:32Andy Greenwald?

  Um, all right. So can't confirm or deny anything, but the hope is there will be more Star City. In the meantime, there is more For All Mankind and that's, that's next on your docket. Is that correct?

• 57:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, we've, we are, are heading to Bulgaria, uh, to shoot some and, uh, and it's the, we're, we're toward the end of the last season. Yeah. It's really crazy.

• 57:54Andy Greenwald?

  I gotta say, I did get, in no disrespect to a show that I admire and that I will Return to you, but when I I did hear from your publicist that you were going back to Eastern Europe, I was like, oh, yeah. Realized that you had like multiple stops.

• 58:06Speaker 07

  Multiple Eastern Europe.

• 58:08Andy Greenwald?

  You're across a lot of the former work.

• 58:10Speaker 07

  I'm not kidding when I say we are soon to be the experts on Eastern European film spots.

• 58:15Andy Greenwald?

  Incredible. Well, that's pretty much where we're all going to be filming soon.

• 58:17Speaker 07

  I mean, it's sound unfortunately. It does sound that way, but it is. It's it's quite a feat, you know, to in this time and day to finish a show.

• 58:26Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 07

  Any show.

• 58:27Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah.

• 58:27Speaker 07

  From the beginning, because even when we were pitching for All Mankind, honestly, like, I don't think that show gets made in any other time and places it when it was. It's such a weird idea. Huge sci fi based on no IP and and the fact that we're now getting to the end of it. Is quite incredible. I mean, so we definitely feel the weight. I mean, we also feel the the exhaustion and burnout. I think a lot of the show creators feel as they're getting to the end of their shows. But it 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.

• 58:57Andy Greenwald?

  Guys nailed it.

• 58:58Speaker 07

  I know. We lucked out. I know.

• 59:01Andy Greenwald?

  Last ones on the gravy train.

• 59:03Speaker 07

  No, 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.

• 59:12Andy Greenwald?

  Yeah, it was emotional.

• 59:13Speaker 07

  Yeah, because this crew, these people we we love that we've worked with, have done so much like it is that feeling with this. We can't just let this go. So hopefully. Hopefully, things turn around.

• 59:22Andy Greenwald?

  Did you tell them about the Frankfurt Airport?

• 59:24Speaker 07

  That will help LA. That will help the.

• 59:27Andy Greenwald?

  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. And thanks for joining me.

• 59:47Speaker 06

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