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Samira Wiley, Yvonne Strahovski and Bruce Miller also joined the discussion on the hit Hulu series.
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00:00Hi everyone I'm Ashley Lee and this is Closer Look The Handmaid's Tale and with me I have Bruce
00:10Miller, Yvonne Strahovski, Joseph Fiennes, Elizabeth Moss and Samira Wiley thank you so
00:15much for coming so let's kick it off first Bruce can you tell me what the priority was when you're
00:21expanding this dystopian book especially when it has such a following not screwing it up you know
00:28any time you take something this popular people have devoted so much of their time and attention
00:33and heart to you know and I don't know it's so much of my time and attention you just don't want to
00:39ruin people's perception of the book so I think really you start from how do you take the book
00:45and turn it into a TV series not take the book and throw it away and start a new TV series with the
00:50same title what was most exciting about filling out that these characters backstories and and
00:55really just widening the scope I think that the updating the story just slightly was really
01:03interesting about what's changed in the last 35 years and they're subtle things but you know you
01:10really want to pay it and that was actually the most fun to say you know the book covered had
01:15backstories about certain things that happened but we covered slightly different things and how
01:19characters met and how they got involved in this movement and it's very it makes you realize how the
01:25political environment changes in really kind of basic ways over that period of time the evangelical
01:32movement change and all those kind of things so that I think was really cool to have backstory that
01:36actually felt like backstory for this story as opposed to backstory for the book Elizabeth and Samira I heard
01:41that you guys had a very intriguing meeting your first meeting with Margaret Atwood what was that
01:46like it was a dinner that we all had to go to for the cast and creatives and I'm pretty sure that you
01:52intentionally yeah it's true I was so nervous to meet Margaret and I you know everyone was showing up and
02:01sit you know sitting down and I realized once I sat down that there was one seat available across from me
02:10and Margaret Atwood was gonna sit there and in that moment I had to realize what plan was I gonna
02:17enact so that I could feel safe in this environment and then the lovely Lizzie Moss walked into the
02:25restaurant I came to her and told her that I had saved her the most excellent seat and that you know I avoided
02:34having to sit across from her but um and and and throughout the evening I became so comfortable
02:41with her and uh she's such an amazing woman yeah yeah yeah she was like here you go right here I'll be
02:47over here it was great you liked it though right yeah I mean it was awesome like it it was unfortunately
02:55really loud in that restaurant if you guys remember and uh it was Reed and I were sitting next to each
03:00other Reed and Rana and we were literally just leaning across the table trying to like catch
03:04every word she's not the loudest talker and so we were just trying to soak up anything that we
03:09possibly could you know and both of you play handmaids in the story how did you particularly
03:16prepare to play this very unique type of character I mean for me the book was just like my Bible pun
03:23intended like I just kind of thanks Bruce I mean just read it over and over and over again and read
03:29certain passages over and over it's the greatest cheat sheet an actor could have especially
03:34because it's written from my character's perspective so it's it's all of her thoughts
03:38it's all of her feelings it's it's and written in beautiful prose it isn't running away they're
03:44afraid of the handmaid wouldn't get far it's those other escapes the ones you can open in yourself
03:52given a cutting edge or a twisted sheet and a chandelier I try not to think about those escapes
04:04it's harder on ceremony days but thinking can hurt your chances it was not only helpful but really
04:14lovely to read and so that was my preparation even in talking to Margaret that dinner I slowly realized it
04:20in my in my stupid questioning that it was all in the book there wasn't a whole lot that I could
04:26ask her it was all there she'd already written it so that for me was my main preparation I think in my
04:32approach to the character yes she's a handmaid but most of what you see in Moira is in flashbacks
04:38and the the heart in the center of who she is I feel like is what I'm more so gravitated to to try to
04:44figure out who this person was I really think that she is a person that that bolsters Offred in a way
04:52she is a person that is never going to give up you know she's a survivor and I think that that is is
04:59what I tried to focus on was it super intense during all those months that you were up in Canada
05:04shooting this one no no no I think I don't know I think there's some sort of you know countervailing
05:10balance which is you know everybody I know who's on a really funny show finds it miserable because
05:15they're getting all their funny out in front of the camera and we got all our serious out in front of
05:19the camera yeah it was seventh grade giggling otherwise I mean I don't remember it was not with
05:26the crew too I mean we had the nicest crew that loved to have a great time and you know you're also
05:31there you know 70 hours a week and you can't be dramatic and serious all the time yeah it would
05:38just be exhausting you were a great component in that because Lizzie has this wonderful humility and
05:44humor in the horror of what's going on in the narrative but you kind of led by example because
05:49it could seriously be the lead that's very dour and heavy and you had this great ability to dance
05:55between what we're doing in front of the camera and then just we had a sort of joyous
06:00company as well and that was kind of it was interesting the way you could segue between
06:05the horrors that you were enacting and then just participate with the crew and everyone
06:10it's great watching Lizzie kind of like participate on that level thank you also when you know we're
06:15shooting those ceremony scenes like that you know you read that on paper and it's obviously very
06:20awkward and uncomfortable and all kinds of things going on there but and you know you kind of walk
06:26into that first one thinking how is this going to be is it going to be awkward but it was really fun
06:32yeah in a weird way I mean I know there's a lot of very serious issues that arise from watching
06:37something like that and and shooting that but as a as a group the three of us along with Breed who was
06:43there establishing the tone and sort of really trying to figure out what how we were going to to do
06:49this together it felt fun and light-hearted to get through five months you need humor kind of like
06:55offering this humor to get through her kind of you need I think humor is like you said it's that
06:59balancing I do think people look at what we do as you know kind of mystery and it's actually it's a
07:04workplace where people work very hard and very long hours and nobody wants a miserable workplace
07:09these guys all everybody works very hard to make it you know a fun workplace when you're gonna be
07:13there 12 hours a day so it's a strange workplace but it is work a lot of the focus is on like the cookie tray
07:19that's coming yeah the rumors about what's been put on the craft table plate is out you know it's very
07:28food centric so you all started the shoot before the election in the US did things change on set once
07:36the results came out did it affect anything at all I think it affected everybody personally certainly I
07:43mean it was interesting because we were in another country being in Canada and how Canada perceived the
07:48election that certainly change your thing but I I don't know that certainly I don't think I
07:55changed gears consciously in terms of what I was doing with the story I may have I mean you guys have a
08:01little bit more perspective on that than I do but I think there was a feeling from the beginning that
08:07what we were doing was important and relevant already and like you said I don't think anything was
08:13conscious but probably just subconsciously realizing that what we were doing was all that more important
08:20and the integrity of you know the show and what my fellow actors didn't change at all other than just
08:29becoming a little more aware of what we were doing and the social climate I felt like playing Serena Joy
08:35there was I don't know how you felt because we're sort of the villains you know that the people that
08:40you're not supposed to like obviously in going through the election as we were shooting the show it did
08:53suddenly feel like it had more weight to it and also it was somewhat confusing to play Serena Joy only
09:01because I find her completely unrelatable to myself it was hard to figure out why she's so mean and why she
09:09treats people the way that she does
09:11you will stay here and you will not leave this room do you understand me
09:18you know suddenly you you have this election and Trump is elected and you start observing
09:31and watching all this behavior come to light negative behavior obviously you know things that were the
09:38headlines as you know his presidency started and I you know there's I start seeing these parallels
09:45between the Serena Joy like her actions in The Handmaid's Tale and what he's doing but also you know
09:53there's a weird duality behind the effect of what Trump is doing and particularly about women and all the
10:00women's issues that are coming up and how that also affects a character like Serena Joy within
10:06within the context of The Handmaid's Tale and what we're dealing with and how that's arising and how
10:10you're seeing all these women and men be oppressed in this cage that they've created for themselves
10:16for themselves meaning Serena Joy and the commander and the other people who are the architects of this
10:20society so in a weird way an inspiration but also a hard parallel but and so many dualities
10:27for me I think came out of that but I think the great thing that Yvonne did that was really
10:32important to to to Bruce in the writing of it I think as well and as well with the commander but
10:38is bringing that vulnerability to it bringing the complexity she's making her not villainous making her
10:44understandable and that's how I see Serena and that's how I see the commander as well like both of
10:50their performances really brought so many layers to it that there's they're not actually as villainous as
10:56they may be in the book they're much more fleshed out and I I had times when I we would do a scene
11:01together especially and we would look at each other and all of a sudden we were just two women we were
11:05just two human beings on opposite sides of a coin and there's just that crazy we would get chills of just
11:12the sense of like right we're just two people into different also both terrible circumstances right and and that
11:19story of survival you know it's your story of survival but what what happens when two women are pitted against
11:27each other because of society or because of some fundamentalist totalitarian regime and what happens
11:33when two ordinary women who might be friends outside of that have to suddenly survive and it's a survival story for
11:42for a lot of people because you're not able to you connect in any normal way that you used to be able
11:49to connect you're not able to touch you're not able to do any of that and so often it felt like how do
11:56how do we connect in a world where we're not allowed to anymore and and and we've forgotten how to or at least
12:02for Serena Joy I feel like she didn't know how to do that yeah but it's this pitted pitted against each other idea that was interesting
12:10you guys as well it's one of the things you guys do so well and did from the beginning is is you know
12:15your you know people with with in their hearts good good goals they may have ended up going down a
12:21really nasty path but there's some good goal something where you can justify it right I mean and and as
12:27this before but you know TV shows are always good entertainment is always good as it as the bad guy
12:32but every authority starts out in a sort of a manner of redressing the horrors and that's
12:40what Gilead does and that's what any administration but it's watching how that authority becomes corrupt
12:47and how it kind of is is full of hypocrisy and where's one face well has another face and that's
12:53what's interesting I think about the show and why it is prescient it's seeing how power and authority
13:00coming in to help us uses this theocracy and it's used a lot in the states and all over the world is
13:06using scripture and words that kind of can implement for the better good of everyone regimes but it
13:16ends up taking the voices in the power away as well that's kind of but I think all authorities start from
13:22a really auteuristic good position as as the president today I'd like to think he starts from a really
13:28good but we have to watch how and it's very interesting seeing the parallels between our world and this
13:33world it's watching how the corruption creeps in I think it might be one way that it did affect me
13:40as looking at the show was that and in a way that was horrible for the world but great for me which
13:49was that people were all of a sudden saying the venomous things that they had always thought out loud
13:55in very clear ways as you were just saying about that and it made it all of a sudden easier to first of
14:02all there were a lot of things that I didn't think people felt anymore you know in my little bubble
14:06and and also you you at least get a sense of how someone says those things how they justify those
14:12things because all of a sudden they felt free to say these things that were you know even a few years
14:17ago far too extreme to say out loud yeah are the recent headlines affecting how you're cutting things
14:24uh well I think that from the beginning we we were uh uh going to be pretty straightforward and brave
14:33it just made us made that a lot easier um so I think it more made me feel comfortable with what
14:39I was doing rather than maybe change what I was doing um so maybe it changed one or two things but
14:45I'm not going to tell you what they are let's go around and talk about what was probably the toughest
14:49moment on set or toughest scene to shoot I'm totally curious to hear you well most of my scenes were with
14:56Lizzie and I remember one of the scenes um being when we reconnect and it's so hard to look someone in
15:08the face that you know and you love and to be completely honest with them and have that honesty have that
15:18truth be something so far from what you want and what you believe should be to have any situation
15:27I feel where you're just being honest with someone that you love and you don't want that to be the
15:32truth is one of the hardest things that I feel like anyone has to go through and we had a scene like
15:38that and I I thank Lizzie so much for her nakedness really in that scene um and that was the hardest
15:47thing and they did have to the one of the great things about the show is time is often compressed
15:53people only have a certain amount of time together so it could have taken what would naturally take a
15:58long time to get to they these guys had to get to like that in two seconds you know and then get out
16:05of it in two seconds because they only have a certain amount of time while joe's in the shower
16:09running running out of time that day always yeah we were running out of time that day I think it was
16:13like no no I was talking about in the scene you know in the scene no no no but in conjunction
16:17yeah as well as we were trying to make the day probably um so really that never happened
16:26no I think you're right though for sure what about for you there's a lot of tough stuff but uh for me like
16:31the emotional stuff is really fun so that doesn't count so I would just say the physical stuff um and
16:38there's one scene um that we did yeah in episode 10 so I will talk about it but it was a really emotional
16:50scene and um in a car I can say that Bruce is like shut up shut up shut up in a car and I had to
17:01I had to be really emotional and also really physical and I think the first take I did it
17:06which like I think it was barely even on me but I did it and I was so exhausted afterwards like I
17:11couldn't move my like arms I couldn't like move my legs and I realized like this is like the first
17:16take of many and I'm gonna do this like many more times I was like I'm so screwed uh that was also
17:22really fun though too I mean it's such a great scene so that was and we're also moving in a car
17:26you know it's just a lot the degree of difficulty was yeah yeah yeah it's just physically you know
17:32but it was fun um but yeah I would say that was like that was a tough one for sure I slept really good
17:36that night it's weird because when when they're really difficult in terms of the emotion you're
17:47in a good place so secretly you think actually this is great this is where we want to be and
17:51that's pretty much all the time but I think sort of witnessing the effects of what that character
17:57and what one is playing is having on or vice versa mostly with with Lizzie and Yvonne but really
18:05watching others for me rather than myself because they're so real and vivid and that sort of day in
18:12day out over months seeing everyone go through the moon seeing Lizzie but there's one in particular is
18:19when the commander takes Offred to Jezebel's and it was this bit where he takes her to the hotel and
18:24that's when Moira comes in and it's I found that just really yucky and creepy and just
18:32pathetic and nasty and that for me was one that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth and it's all in
18:41the book and it's in the writing but it's and at the same time whilst you're witnessing the the
18:46abhorrent nature of a man and what he's forcing someone to do in their life of servitude is it's also
18:53in terms of copy and narrative it's great at the same time because you're in the right place
18:58yeah I think probably the hardest thing for me was to leave Serena Joy somewhere other than my
19:08head because I felt it was really hard trying to make sense of her actions and trying to justify
19:13why she does certain things and there's certain things that she does that are pretty brutal and
19:19how she treats Offred especially and so so much of that was like a puzzle of of trying to trying to
19:27peel those onion layers and try and get to the to the bottom of why would someone really really really
19:33really do this and consequently once I arrived at that in my in my own headspace and then we would
19:40come to shoot a scene predominantly with with Lizzie you know and then watching how the actions of
19:47Serena Joy affect someone uh it was hard to not feel for her um because I I couldn't because I
20:03am in my own survival mode as Serena Joy and she has her own motivation and the only
20:09beacon of light that Serena has I think is is to hold on to this idea that she
20:13will have a child uh she can't do that herself she has to rely on Offred so Serena will do whatever
20:20it takes to get this child and if that means going at it at Offred's expense then she will and
20:31marrying that with with the reaction and how that affects someone emotionally how that affects someone's
20:37psyche was horrible there were so many times where I just wanted to give her a hug or she would
20:43so she would say that too she's like I'm so sorry she's awful isn't she and I was like she's not
20:49and I was like she's not that bad like I get it like
20:54you know I'm being such a bitch right now like yeah but it's the what you're saying came through I mean all
21:00the the the feeling sorry for her that you were that that you were trying to tamp down came yeah
21:06Serena Joy trying to tamp it down which is why the character yeah exactly because I think it's you know
21:11you still that's what I mean about pinning people against each other because you it's not like you
21:15switch off all those feelings you're still you're still feeling feelings and they're complex and they
21:20don't agree with the other feelings that you're having yeah but you have a through line at the end of
21:23the day of what is your survival what what is your place here on earth and what are the parameters that you
21:29have to live in and the parameters are very strong the walls are very thick and high in in Gilead
21:35um and what made it more complicated is that does that Serena Joy is one of the architects of this
21:40society what you know how do you how do you marry that how do you go oh I'm okay with this but but but
21:45not really one of the things that's interesting to me just hearing that is that it's the same thing
21:49with writing the scenes that I struggle over writing I think in the end when I read a script I can't
21:55tell the difference between the ones that happened smoothly and the ones that took weeks
21:59and weeks and it's the same thing with you guys from the outside even being there on the day and
22:03knowing some scenes were more difficult when you see them put together it it absolutely cannot tell
22:09which ones were more difficult to get to and which ones flowed quite easily so I don't know whether
22:15that's because the ones that are more difficult to they work very hard at getting them to be easy and
22:20flow or just the fact that that that a lot of that is in is is work that's going on inside your head and
22:26what you see on the outside is that work and it makes those scenes fit in with everything else
22:31what kind of conversation do you hope your show sparks in the current world I hope both a lot of
22:38conversations I mean one of the best things about the show and about the book is that
22:44rolling back and seeing flashbacks for me you can see how things that people would do and say even today
22:51how if they're followed to their ultimate extreme can turn into something horrible so hopefully it'll
22:58make people more thoughtful about you know you know that that you know a nasty comment in a coffee shop
23:06if that's taken to its logical extreme is a horrible world but you know I was thinking about this this
23:12morning I think you know I think it's about the Offred's ability to resist and that she doesn't feel
23:23that in a position where she is completely without any levers of power to pull she still pulls levers
23:31of power and still tries to make her surroundings stronger so I think that you know in America right
23:36now I think people feel powerless and those kind of things and there's lots of things about being an
23:41an American you know being puritanical is part of being an American I don't know how we see
23:46ourselves being very individualistic or whatever but I actually think kind of at our base we're
23:51stubborn as shit and that's what I think that that you know that that a lot of what what is holding
23:57Offred together is just the fact that she's not going to stand for it I hope that inspires people
24:02that even when if you feel like you can't speak up in this situation look at you know that situation
24:09that Offred finds ways to speak up and improve her life and change the people around her
24:13And then Samira and Lizzy what right as a woman do you think is most vulnerable in our current political climate?
24:21How much time do you have?
24:27I mean I think the easy one that comes to mind but it's sort of a blanket right but I'll say it because I conclude a lot of things in it is the right to do with your own body what you want to do
24:35um which covers a lot of things frankly it doesn't it doesn't just cover the right to have a child or not have a child
24:43I think that that would be the one that's been a danger for a while not just in the past few months but it's definitely worse now
24:49um yeah that would be a big one I agree um just thinking of something else but I think that that's the biggest one for me as well
24:55um it's yeah I don't know if I have too much more to say about it yeah it's sort of simple really
25:14that's so complicated apparently
25:18or what do you hope female viewers specifically take away from this show if anything
25:21um one of the things that I think is so interesting to me about the show is the uh the sort of caste system
25:30that they have specifically within the women um it is I think a false sense of authority there um you know
25:40we have Serena Joy um and Offred who are two totally different uh status in in the society but how
25:48how how different it would be and how amazing it would be if they could see that banding together
25:55um could uh be a revolution I think that pitting women against each other is something that uh happens
26:05in Gilead and also happens um in in our world today and I think that thinking about that and really just
26:14wanting people to have conversations that they wouldn't be having otherwise um is is something
26:19that I hope for yeah absolutely yeah I mean it's in the book and it's in the show you can you know
26:25she says you can mean more than one you can mean thousands and I think that uh when people start stop
26:31looking at each other as human beings and start looking at each other as a certain class or a man or
26:37a woman or black or white or whatever it is you know republican democrat you just forget so quickly that
26:43we're all kind of here wanting the same things you know and I think that that's completely lost in
26:50Gilead and it's the reason why we can't be friends you know and it's uh I think it's something that you
26:55know is I hope that people see in the show I hope that people see as well as I really liked yours though
27:01I want to take yours too which is that the stubbornness and the and the resistance and the not giving up and
27:07all of that I hope that that reminds people that they can be a lot stronger than they think they are
27:11thank you so much all of you for such a wonderful discussion I appreciate it you're welcome thank
27:16you for watching see we usually have someone who says cut cut
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