House of the Dragon<\/a> star Rhys Ifans, is referred to only as the \u201cChief Designer\u201d in order to protect his identity.<\/p>\n\u201cIn a way that it wasn’t for NASA, the Soviet space game was very much all down to the genius of this one man,\u201d Ifans says. \u201cSo much of the knowledge required to get them to space, only he had it, which explains why he was hidden away and kind of protected at such great lengths by the state.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ifans knew nothing about the Soviet space program before joining Star City, but he read everything he could about Korolev to prepare for the role.<\/p>\n
\u201cOrdinarily, a man like this would be celebrated by society,\u201d Ifans says. \u201cHe’d be out on the streets in ticker tape parades time and time again. But I don’t think that ever was his driving ambition. His ambition is getting humans away from Earth’s atmosphere into space.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Star_City_Photo_010103\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779737110_190_star_city_photo_010103.jpg\")
\n Image: Apple TV<\/p>\n
The Chief Designer\u2019s work is constantly undermined by Communist Party officials who value showy victories over missions that will advance science, and KGB agents who torture and kill innocents to cover up their failings.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo much of the program that they were so proud of was based on the idea of secrecy and security,\u201d For All Mankind and Star City co-showrunner Ben Nedivi says. \u201cIt felt only natural in telling this story that the intelligence apparatus and the KGB would be a big part of the story, much more than in For All Mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n
World War II veteran Lyudmilla Raskova (Anna Maxwell Martin) leads KGB surveillance at Star City, often butting heads with the Chief Designer by prioritizing secrecy over mission success. As she tries to root out a mole working with U.S. intelligence, Raskova takes a special interest in Irina Morozova (Agnes O’Casey), an ambitious new KGB agent tasked with eavesdropping on the cosmonauts and their spouses.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are in such a strange relationship where they find each other alluring and fascinating,\u201d Martin says. \u201cWith Lyudmilla, there’s the control and treating [Irina] like her toy or her pet, but then valuing her as well at the same time, or valuing the potential of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Star_City_Photo_010202\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/star_city_photo_010202.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Balancing the show\u2019s spy thriller elements with the high stakes space missions and personal drama that drive For All Mankind was a challenge. The showrunners found inspiration for fitting the elements together in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck\u2019s Oscar-winning 2007 film The Lives of Others and Francis Ford Coppola\u2019s 1974 thriller The Conversation, which both focus on people conducting audio surveillance.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Lyudmilla and Irina are] listening to the cosmonauts and the engineers,\u201d Nedivi says. \u201cThat ended up becoming one of the fun things of working on the show because suddenly sound and the idea of voyeurism was something we were able to explore in a way we only touched on briefly in For All Mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n
The people being surveilled have to watch what they say and do, but the very act of surveillance deeply affects the spies themselves. Irina becomes obsessed with Tanya Markelova (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), the carefree wife of one of Star City\u2019s top cosmonauts.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe spent hours of her life listening to her and she\u2019s fallen in love with her,\u201d O\u2019Casey says \u201cShe’s so lovable. She’s everything Irina’s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first two episodes of Star City premiere on Apple TV on May 29. New episodes will release Fridays through July 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Soviet Union repeatedly humiliated the United States in the Space Race, launching the first artificial satellite and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[156,111,139,69,437],"class_list":["post-444791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}