Nerd Reactor had the opportunity to speak with Rhys Ifans, creators Matt Wolpert and Ben Nedivi, Anna Maxwell Martin, and Josef Davies about the series’ darker tone, the real-life inspirations behind its characters, and how there is still hope despite the gloomy setting.

Rhys Ifans on Playing an Obsessive Genius Hidden From History

Fans of Rhys Ifans may know him as Dr. Curt Connors in The Amazing Spider-Man, a scientist obsessed with a cure for his amputated arm. In Star City, he portrays The Chief Designer, who has a different kind of obsession.

“Yes, you’re right,” the actor tells Nerd Reactor about the similarities between Curt Connors and the Chief Designer. “They’re both obsessed. But in this case, the most pleasing thing for me as an actor is that one was actually a real human being, the Chief Designer. With many obsessions, yes, to fly the Russian flag. But also, on a personal level, I think he was a kid who, like many children, stared up at the night sky, saw the moon, and was irrepressibly curious as to what that might present or represent.

“And then what was interesting to me was the fact that he had to do all this without the knowledge of anyone, not just knowing that he was behind the great work that was done, but that he himself is invisible in the whole story. And one could argue the greatest story ever told.”

Star City Explores the Human Side of Life Under Pressure

Ben Nedivi is the co-creator and serves as a showrunner and executive producer. Even with the show’s darker tones, hope is a pivotal part that allows the Soviets to push their space program further.

“I think even For All Mankind, there’s a constant push and pull of the optimism of that show,” Nedivi said. “I think that’s something we wanted to capture – as important as this idea of the pressure that they were under – but also how they overcame that pressure. As people watch the show, you’ll see that the power is in these humans, that overcoming the system, overcoming the odds, to still thrive and still succeed in their own way. That’s to me where I see the hope in the show.”

Revisiting the Soviet Space Race Through a Different Lens

Viewers will be transported into an alternate Cold War setting once again, and because of the Soviet world, it feels completely different.

“There’s also a nostalgia for the simpler time of the Cold War, ironically, even though we were a breath away from nuclear war all the time,” Matt Wolpert said. “It was like, ‘Oh, but those were the days,’ because now everything just feels so kind of incomprehensible. At least then you understood there were two sides and everybody was on one of those sides. And so there is kind of a nice warm feeling about being back in 1969 and in the USSR, weirdly.”

“At least then you knew if you were going to die, who was going to kill you,” Ifans added.

Surveillance and Paranoia

The series captures how the KGB spied on its own people, especially as audiences follow Anna Maxwell Martin as the head of the KGB surveillance department at Star City and Agnes O’Casey as a recruit.

“There was certainly a history in a country where children informed on their own parents,” Martin said. “That was a grim reality. You have to be committed to immersing yourself in a very different type of culture and time.”

Finding Hope Inside Star City’s Dark World

Josef Davies portrays the younger Sergei Nikulov, an engineer who works at Soviet Ground Control. Even when the government is spying on its own people, these characters find ways to persevere.

“Although it’s in the same universe, it’s a completely different world and a completely different experience,” Davies said. “I think it’s more of this setting, and then, as we’ve said before, it’s kind of character-driven, and it’s really the story of people just trying to be human and live and fight for the thing that they’re passionate about. So the oppression and the depression and everything that we’re living in, I think, it kind of just feels more of a tool to help us provide that story.”

Star City premieres on Apple TV+ on May 29, 2026.

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The film brings a sense of familiarity between Jack Ryan and Mike November. The joyous relationship between Krasinski and Kelly off the screen helped add to their on-screen chemistry.

“The more you get to know Michael Kelly, you have to just embrace what you got, which is a wild horse,” Krasinski tells Nerd Reactor. “He’s the nicest, funniest, most generous person who also makes me laugh incredibly hard. It’s no coincidence that his character went from being a buttoned-up CIA guy to a complete wild man.”

Kelly reiterates the sentiment, focusing on the same energy on set.

“Personally, I’m in tears every single day of filming,” Kelly added. “We laugh that hard every day, even through a lot of difficult days on set. Somehow, we always find a way to get through it by making each other laugh.”

Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War is now available to stream on Prime Video.

You can watch the full interview via the video above.

About Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War

Synopsis: In this new film, Jack Ryan is reluctantly thrust back into the world of espionage when an international covert mission unravels a deadly conspiracy, forcing him to confront a rogue black-ops unit, and the clock is ticking. Operating in real time with lives on the line and the threat escalating at every turn, Jack reunites with battle-tested CIA operative Mike November (Michael Kelly) and former CIA boss James Greer (Wendell Pierce), their combined experience the only edge they have against an enemy who knows their every move. Backed by an unlikely new partner – razor-sharp MI6 officer Emma Marlowe (Sienna Miller) – Jack and the team navigate a treacherous web of betrayal, facing a past they thought was long put to rest – making this the most personal, high-stakes mission any of them have ever faced.

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Jake Johnson is known for voicing Peter B. Parker in the Spider-Verse animated films. In Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, he portrays Karl, Paula’s ex-husband, who does not see her as a fit mother.

“I don’t think Peter B. Parker would like Karl at all,” Johnson tells Nerd Reactor. “I don’t think he would be interested in him. I think Karl is so in his little battle for Hazel and doing what he thinks is right that Karl’s not able to see anything else besides his reality and his truth.

“And I think he is 100% convinced he’s right. And I don’t think that’s something that Peter B. Parker finds attractive in people.”

Jake’s character believes what he’s doing is right; however, Bartlett’s character is a whole other beast. One of the most talked-about episodes in HBO’s The Last of Us series featured Murray Bartlett and Nick Offerman. It showed viewers that love can bloom even in a post-apocalyptic world. In Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, Bartlett portrays an antagonist who would become an obstacle for Tatiana’s Paula.

“I think he’d be awesome because I think he’s a sociopath,” Bartlett said about his Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed character if he were in The Last of Us. “I think he can distance himself from emotion, or just naturally, he just doesn’t have a lot of it. He has a very small spectrum of emotions. So I think he could get it done, and not be worried about consequences.”

David J. Rosen is the creator, executive producer and writer of the series, whose credits include Us & Them, Invasion, Sugar, and Hunters. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed is a series with dark and comedic elements, and it’s a balancing act throughout the series.

“I think trying to make them laugh is weirdly hard,” Rosen said. “That’s kind of how we attacked the series, actually. We can write the thriller moves, and we have to execute them. But we could know intellectually that these should line up and be good. But you can’t really intellectually know whether or not something funny will land. It’s just a whole different thing. Because of that, let’s write a bulletproof thriller, as bulletproof as we can make it. And then the humor will come from the characters and how they respond to those thriller moments.”

About Maximum Pleasure Guarantteed

Synopsis: From creator and showrunner David J. Rosen, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed follows newly divorced mom Paula (Maslany) as she falls down a dangerous rabbit hole of blackmail, murder and youth soccer. Convinced she witnessed a crime – while simultaneously struggling through a custody battle and an identity crisis – Paula begins her own investigation, one that could unravel a greater conspiracy while also holding the keys to rebuilding her family and sense of self.

Brandon Flynn (“13 Reasons Why”) and Murray Bartlett (“The Last of Us,” “The White Lotus”) also join the ensemble cast, which includes Jessy Hodges (“Barry”), Jon Michael Hill (“Elementary”), Charlie Hall (“The Sex Lives of College Girls,” “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story”), Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg (“Charmed,” “Invasion”), Nola Wallace (The Strangers: Chapter 2, The Strangers: Chapter 3) and Dolly De Leon (“Nine Perfect Strangers,” “Triangle of Sadness”).

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Voicing the English version of Hathaway is Caleb Yen (Metaphor: ReFantazio), the leader of MAFTY, who seeks to disrupt the Federation government. The character is very serious, who is the complete opposite of Yen.

“I like to play a character that’s so different from me,” the actor said. “So getting to be someone who thinks a lot more than I do and has a mission that he’s very dedicated to, but thinks about it instead of talking about it. Whereas I would just talk about it a lot. And what’s great about this movie or the trilogy, you’re not sure who to root for.”

Voicing Lane Aim, the young Gundam pilot on the Federation side, is Kieran Walton.

“That’s kind of real-life adjacent,” Walton said of the morally grey characters in the Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway films. “Sometimes it feels like you don’t know who to root for, and it really is important to sort through those matters on your own and really figure out where you’re passionate.”

About Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway: The Sorcery of Nymph Circe

Synopsis: The year is U.C. 0105, twelve years after Char’s Rebellion. “MAFTY” has begun resisting the Federation government’s tyrannical rule by assassinating its ministers. Its leader is actually Hathaway Noa, the son of Bright Noa, who fought in the One Year War alongside Amuro Ray.

Haunted by past trauma, Hathaway is drawn to a mysterious girl named Gigi Andalucia, whose strange powers stir memories within him. While swayed by her cryptic words, he continues preparing for MAFTY’s mission — the attack on the Adelaide Conference. Kenneth Sleg of the Earth Federation Forces prepares a defense operation for the Adelaide Conference and a plan to eliminate MAFTY and is approached by Handley Yoxon of the Criminal Police Organization with a secret proposal.

As Hathaway and Kenneth pursue their respective goals, Gigi also sets off for Hong Kong to fulfill her own role.

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“I found it upsetting,” Dano tells Nerd Reactor. “To learn what you do in this film and then see how it’s been applied all over the world. So in that way, it’s not just a film about Russia, but about modern politics and modern power. One of the really disturbing things for me was seeing that the creation of chaos requires a strong figure in the middle. We’ve really seen that put to work in the US as well.”

As an actor, Dano discusses what he does between different projects.

“Absolutely take time to reset if you can, because it’s easy to get lost on tour, so to speak, like a band that can’t stop touring,” he explained. “It is a different life. You’re working very long days, often away from home. It’s really important to go back to your life, your people, your family, get leveled again, get straight again, and regenerate so that you are hungry for the next one.”

About The Wizard of the Kremlin

Synopsis: In the chaos of post-Soviet Russia, rising KGB officer Vladimir Putin (Jude Law) joins forces with master manipulator Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano) to reshape life behind the Iron Curtain, using violence and deception to change the world forever. Putin and Baranov’s reign of chaos begins with lies and corruption, and quickly escalates to assassinations, tyranny, and eventually all-out war.

The film is directed by Olivier Assayas and written by Olivier Assayas and Emmanuel Carrère.

It stars Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Tom Sturridge, Will Keen, with Jeffrey Wright and Jude Law.

The Wizard of the Kremlin releases in North American theaters on May 15, 2026.

The post Paul Dano Reflects on Power, Politics, and Shaping Reality Behind the Scenes appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

Nerd Reactor had the chance to chat with Valorie Curry, who portrayed Firecracker, a member of The Seven who uses her show to manipulate the masses. She talks about fans’ reactions to her shocking episode.

“It’s been pleasantly surprising because it seems to have sparked a lot of conversation about the crisis of faith that [Firecracker] goes through,” Curry tells Nerd Reactor. “It’s such a humanizing story and a relatable sort of story for a lot of people. It’s meant so much to me to hear from people who saw themselves in that. I was so happy watching it to see that it doesn’t talk down to anybody. It’s not making fun of anybody. It’s not actually making a joke of people who are having a crisis of faith, leaving a high-control religion, or leaving a political perspective. That existential crisis is treated in a very empathetic way. And that’s why I think it has resonated with so many people.”

Season 5, Episode 5 features Firecracker manipulating the public again on TV, but this time, the viewers understand what she is going through. Will she throw her former pastor under the bus, or will she try to defend her past church?

“The tear thing is interesting,” she said. “Because other than this scene, almost every time she cries, she can turn the water works on like that. They’re crocodile tears, right? She knows how to use her instrument, and none of those tears are coming from some real place. It’s like she’s choking on what she has to say, and that’s the one way that it comes out. It comes through that crack in the mask. That scene was by far the most painful scene to shoot. It was excruciating, and I think the reason it’s so painful is that she hasn’t actually decided yet. She still hasn’t decided when the camera starts rolling, and you just watch her vomit up that lie, and she hates herself.”

The finale episode of The Boys airs on May 20, 2026.

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Kawamori has a new film, Labyrinth, which hits U.S. theaters on May 10th and 11th. If you have seen his previous works, music and technology have been important. With Labyrinth, a high school girl named Shiori (voiced by Atarashii Gakko!’s Suzuka) dreams of becoming an online sensation. After being in a viral but embarrassing video, she is trapped inside her smartphone and replaced by a doppelganger who becomes famous.

“When I think about my past work like Macross, or the Valkyrie, or even Transformers, they have a lot of physical power because they’re giant robots,” Kawamori tells Nerd Reactor. “But a smartphone, even though it’s so much smaller, I think it can have an equivalent or maybe even more power, because you can really affect someone on the other side of the world. So I think technology is very alluring, but also that is the part of the danger that most people don’t realize.”

Kawamori is influenced by growing up in a rural area like Toyama and the modern city of Yokohama. Fans can see the inspiration in his work.

“I was born in traditional arts, and nature was the core of our lives,” the director said. “Then I came to this technology-filled city. I don’t think one is better than the other. I think both are important, and both are very interesting to me. I wanted to always come up with ways where that duality could coexist, and also combine them to create something more interesting and fun. I think that journey of exploring that is really my more than 40 years of work, and it continues into Labyrinth.”

About Labyrinth

Synopsis: Shiori is a typical high school student who dreams of online stardom, but struggles to capture attention. After an embarrassing video of her goes viral, she gets trapped in her smartphone and replaced by a charismatic alter ego. As the doppelganger charms the internet and devises a nefarious plot to replace mankind with brainrot, Shiori must partner with other online outcasts to stop her digital counterpart and reclaim her life in the real world.

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The film follows a group of animals who rebelled against the humans to escape captivity and to prevent themselves from ending up in a slaughterhouse. Lucky, voiced by Gaten Matarazzo (Netflix’s Stranger Things), is a piglet who is torn between following Napoleon, a rebellious boar voiced by Seth Rogen, and Snowball, a sow voiced by Laverne Cox. With the animals running their own animal farm, following one leader blindly could lead to a disastrous end.

“We ultimately wanted to have young people sit with their parents and grandparents and then have a debate,” Serkis tells Nerd Reactor. “[George] Orwell wrote this innocent story to be able to talk about darker themes, but also to have a discussion about it. We have not made this for an algorithm. It’s not to hit from a marketing perspective. We’re not aiming at anything other than trying to tell a tale that will engage young inquiring minds to have a conversation with their adult parents and grandparents.

“Some people will love it, and some people will hate this film, and that’s great. That’s what we want. We want to encourage that, that being able to talk about something, rather than these are very subtle, nuanced discussions that we’re having through an entertaining, animated, young, innocent film.”

Iman Vellani voices two characters, Puff and Tammy, who are piglets and friends of Lucky.

“Teenagers notoriously don’t have a strong sense of self, and younger kids too,” Vellani explained. “They’re literally blindly following what their adults and parents are doing around them, and thinking that that’s the way to do it, because that’s how I’ve been taught and seen… So I think this movie gives younger audiences the tools to actually recognize these injustices and apply them to their own lives, too.”

The interview was edited for length and clarity.

About Animal Farm

Synopsis: A satirical allegory of revolution and power traces how a movement for equality is systematically corrupted. As the pigs consolidate control, truth is erased, dissent is crushed, and the farm descends into a ruthless dictatorship – fulfilling Orwell’s warning about the dangers of communism.

The film is directed by Andy Serkis and features the voice of Serkis, Seth Rogen, Woody Harrelson, Glenn Close, Gaten Matarazzo, Jim Parsons, Kathleen Turner, Kieran Culkin, Steve Buscemi, Laverne Cox, and Iman Vellani.

Animal Farm was released in the U.S. and Canada on May 1, 2026.

The post Andy Serkis & Iman Vellani on Animal Farm: Sacrifice, Power, and Questioning Authority appeared first on Nerd Reactor.

“The most important thing for a producer, and I’m one of a few, you’ve got to take care of business in the background to support everything a director does,” Simmons tells Nerd Reactor. “Because the actors depend on him, the scenic designers, the cinematographers, and everything. So he’s got to put all the pieces together and get a performance that you care about.”

This is in stark contrast to how Simmons works in the music industry.

“Being in a band, it’s your show,” the musician/producer said. “You’re in front of the stage. You control a lot of stuff.”

Deep Water follows survivors of a crashed plane as they try to survive in shark-infested waters.

“The key to any movie is that you care about the characters,” Harlin explained. “You can blow up the planes, you can crash them, and you can have sharks attack from left and right. But if you don’t really root for the characters and care about them, then you don’t have anything.”

Renny Harlin’s life has changed now that he is married and has children.

“I feel that I was more equipped to do this now that my life has changed so much in just the last few years,” he added. “I got married. I have three kids. I think I’m a better person than I was before, and I know that I care more deeply than I ever did. I would like to think that’s reflected in how I handle the characters, how I directed the actors. We have little kids in the story. We have a grandmother in the story. And I think that I paid attention to those things more than I’ve ever done before in my life.”

About Deep Water

Synopsis: A flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai goes down in the middle of the Pacific. After surviving the crash, the survivors soon discover they’re not alone and they must survive the shark infested waters.

The film is directed by Renny Harlin and written by Pete Bridges and John Kim. Producers are Gene Simmons, Ying Ye, Neal Kingston, Grant Bradley, Dale Bradley, Adrián Guerra, Xavier Parache, and Bob Yari.

It stars Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Molly Belle Wright, Angus Sampson, Kelly Gale, and Li Wenhan.

Deep Water releases in theaters nationwide on May 1, 2026.

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The film, starring Ranbir as Rama and Yash as Ravana and directed by Nitesh Tiwari (Dangal), is based on the ancient and epic tale that follows Prince Rama and his journey to save his wife, Sita. The story has been adapted many times into movies, TV series, novels, and comic books.

Yash also serves as the film’s producer, and he aims to have Ramayana reach a global audience.

“I think it’s important to understand there are two possibilities in this kind of scenario,” Yash tells Nerd Reactor. “You don’t take the risk at all and say, ‘Listen, people are so critical about it. People are so sensitive about it. Let’s not go there. We have better ways to make money, or you know, you can go on with a safe zone where you do films.’ And there’s another way, whether it should be told or put on a global platform or not. If the answer is yes, then we should not worry about it because by the end of the day, it’s a good problem to have. People are rooting for it. We should understand where it is coming from.”

Namit Malhotra, the CEO of DNEG, serves as the film’s screenwriter and producer. He discusses the importance of writing as the film’s foundation.

“I think it always starts in the writing,” Namit Malhotra said. “Ramayana is already written to be an epic, and it is bigger than anything else out there. So all we’re doing is faithfully trying to just reproduce it based on what’s been written into what we can present on screen. And that is actually fun because you have such a good base material to work with and really build on. So I think the artists are having a great time, really bringing it to life because you’ve got so much richness in the way it’s been written and what’s been created. Originality of thought, design, all the things that you crave for are all embedded in Ramayana and have been for thousands of years.”

Check out the full interview below:

About Ramayana

Synopsis: From visionary producer and filmmaker Namit Malhotra comes Ramayana, a sweeping, two-part cinematic event inspired by one of the world’s most enduring epics.

Since the beginning of time, the Trinity Gods rule the three worlds; Brahma – god who creates; Vishnu – god who protects; and Shiva – god who transforms. As the realms of heaven, earth edge toward chaos, the Trinity god Vishnu descends to earth in an avatar to restore balance. This time, Vishnu is reborn as RAMA (Ranbir Kapoor), a human prince destined to restore balance. Opposing him, stands the most formidable, learned, undefeatable and immortal demon king RAVANA (Yash), blessed by the Trinity themselves, driven by pride and a vengeance powerful enough to shatter the cosmos.

Unaware of his true purpose as the only opponent destined to stand up to Ravana in a fateful cosmic design; Rama is the idol of Dharma (duty above all) and the most loved crown prince of Ayodhya, the greatest human dynasty of the time. Rama tries to build a life of quiet honor with his beloved wife Sita (Sai Pallavi) and loyal brother Lakshman (Ravie Dubey) amongst others, until a twist of fate drives him into exile and toward an inevitable clash with Ravana in a reckoning so cataclysmic, it will decide the destiny of gods and mortals.

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