Watching From the Inside: Nicholas Podany on PONIES, Observation, and the Quiet Power of Espionage

In PONIES, espionage is rarely about bravado. It’s about proximity. About who sees what, who stays silent, and who understands the cost of being replaceable inside a massive system.

For Nicholas Podany, that tension lives at the center of Ray Szymanski, a mid level CIA analyst stationed in 1977 Moscow. Ray isn’t a traditional spy. He doesn’t kick down doors or deliver monologues about patriotism. He watches. He listens. He survives by staying just useful enough.

That restraint is exactly what drew Podany to the role.

Playing the Observer

Ray Szymanski exists on the margins of power. He’s present in rooms where decisions are made, but rarely the one making them. For Podany, the challenge wasn’t playing intelligence, but playing awareness.

“Ray understands the system better than most,” Podany explains. “He knows how disposable he is, and that knowledge shapes everything he does.”

Rather than leaning into genre theatrics, Podany approached Ray as someone constantly measuring risk. What can be said. What must be withheld. What happens when observation becomes its own form of agency.

It’s a performance built on stillness, timing, and reaction. The drama lives in what Ray chooses not to do.

Cold War Without Glamour

Set in the late Cold War era, PONIES strips espionage of its romanticism. The series presents intelligence work as bureaucratic, absurd, and psychologically exhausting. Podany was drawn to that perspective immediately.

“We’ve seen the glamorous spy,” he says. “This show is about the machinery around them.”

Costume, production design, and tone all reinforce that idea. Ray’s environment feels claustrophobic. His suits feel slightly ill fitting. Humor slips in not as relief, but as survival.

That tonal balance allows PONIES to explore paranoia without spectacle. Danger exists, but it’s rarely announced.

Theater Roots and Television Precision

Podany’s background in theater deeply informs his approach to the role. On stage, listening is as important as speaking. That discipline carries over into Ray’s quiet presence.

“Reaction is everything,” Podany notes. “If you’re not listening, you’re not really acting.”

Television, especially in an ensemble series, requires a similar awareness. Podany describes PONIES as a show where no one character exists in isolation. Each performance feeds the others, creating tension through accumulation rather than escalation.

Humor as a Defense Mechanism

One of Ray’s defining traits is his dry humor. It’s subtle, often self directed, and rarely used to dominate a scene. For Podany, that humor isn’t comedic flair. It’s armor.

“In a system that can erase you at any moment, humor becomes a way to stay human,” he says.'

That idea runs through PONIES as a whole. The show allows absurdity to sit alongside fear, suggesting that laughter and paranoia often coexist.

Replaceability as Theme

At its core, Ray’s story is about expendability. Intelligence agencies depend on people while treating them as interchangeable. Podany was particularly drawn to that contradiction.

“Ray knows he’s not indispensable,” he says. “That awareness makes him careful, but it also makes him honest.”

It’s a theme that feels especially resonant now. Systems grow larger. Individuals become smaller. Survival depends on understanding where you fit.

Looking Ahead

As PONIES unfolds, Podany hopes audiences continue to see Ray not as a background figure, but as a quiet counterweight to the genre’s louder archetypes.

“He’s not trying to be a hero,” Podany says. “He’s trying to make it through the day without disappearing.”

In a genre built on spectacle, that humility feels radical.

And in PONIES, it’s exactly the point.

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