Why does Star City use British accents? The showrunners' explanation, and the For All Mankind precedent it broke

Star City, Apple TV+'s For All Mankind spinoff, premiered on 29 May 2026 and immediately raised a question with anyone who'd watched the parent show: why is the entire Soviet space programme suddenly speaking English, mostly in British and Irish accents? The showrunners have answered it directly — and the answer involves Chernobyl, Wales, and a firm opinion about fake Russian accents.

What the show actually does

The eight-part series, set in 1969 and 1970, follows the secret cosmonaut town of Zvyozdny Gorodok — Star City — outside Moscow, in the alternate timeline where the USSR reached the Moon first. Rhys Ifans plays the unnamed Chief Designer (heavily implied to be Sergei Korolev, who in our history died in 1966), Anna Maxwell Martin plays KGB chief Lyudmilla Raskova, and Agnes O'Casey plays a young Irina Morozova. Everyone speaks English. Nobody attempts a Russian accent. On-screen text, meanwhile, stays in Cyrillic.

The showrunners' explanation

Showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert have said they considered making the show entirely in Russian at an early stage, and consulted Craig Mazin — whose 2019 miniseries Chernobyl used the same English-accents-for-Soviets approach. Wolpert's argument against a uniform put-on accent: the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s contained many regional ways of speaking, so there was no single "correct" sound to imitate anyway. The priority, both have said, was clarity — once viewers invest in the story, the language choice stops registering.

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Ifans went further, and funnier, on the accent question:

"It works well for 10 minutes. And then you think, oh, come on, please," Ifans told Inverse in 2026, of non-Russians attempting Russian accents.

He also pointed out that Korolev was a proud Ukrainian and that he himself is using his Welsh accent — so if you map the UK's accent landscape onto the Soviet Union, Wales-as-Ukraine roughly works geographically. His advice: don't read too much into it.

The precedent it broke

This is a genuine reversal for the franchise. Across five seasons of For All Mankind, Soviet characters were largely played by actors of Russian descent, speaking subtitled Russian: Svetlana Efremova, who plays the older Irina Morozova, is from Novosibirsk; Costa Ronin, who plays Leonid Polivanov, was born in Kaliningrad. Star City recasts that world with British and Irish performers — Josef Davies as a young Sergei Nikulov, Priya Kansara as scientist Lakshmi — using their natural voices.

How it's landed

Reviews have split on the choice. CBR called the absence of Russian actors a frustrating departure from the parent show's standard. The Hollywood Reporter was more relaxed, praising the series while noting the convention with a wink:

The Hollywood Reporter's 2026 review described the dialogue as British accents "we're meant to pretend are the Russian language".

Sixty years of screen Soviets suggest there's no version of this everyone accepts. Star City just picked the Chernobyl lane — and told you why.

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