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It’s become a cliche to talk about The Handmaid’s Tale being “more relevant than ever”. The TV series, based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian 1985 novel of the same name, has been a white-hot political touchstone for the past decade, with the show premiering in the early months of Donald Trump’s presidency in 2017 and concluding shortly after his second inauguration last year.
The handmaids’ red cloaks and white bonnets have been widely adopted as symbols of protest around the world. And scenes from the series – particularly flashbacks from when the fictional patriarchal theocracy of Gilead first took hold – regularly circulate on TikTok, the comments flooded with comparisons to Trump’s America.
These well-meaning statements from (mostly well-off, mostly white) women have attracted pushback over the years. Some critics have labelled it as an uncomfortable attempt to “claim victimhood” – “an instinct toward solidarity ... twisted into what seemed like a private fantasy of persecution”. And this perception is certainly not helped by the fact the show strung out the extraordinary suffering of its main character, June (Elisabeth Moss), over too many seasons, all soundtracked to female empowerment anthems. Her eyes permanently fixed down the barrel of the lens.
But when Ann Dowd, who played the show’s formidable antagonist Aunt Lydia, tells me the upcoming sequel series The Testaments is “more relevant than ever”, I’m inclined to believe her.
“America, oh my god,” the actor says, her voice echoing woefully down the phone line. “We are in a bad way, that’s for sure. What happened? What happened here?”
The US has far more in common with Gilead than it did in 2017, with abortion now banned in many states, the federal government no longer recognising transgender identity, and mass deportation initiatives resulting in federal agents harassing – and killing – citizens. We’re speaking in early February, in the weeks after ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents fatally shot two US citizens in the streets of Minneapolis. Every day brought surreal new footage of masked federal agents with guns, demanding immigration paperwork, violently pulling people from their workplaces and cars.
“It’s terrifying. It really is,” Dowd says. “It’s extraordinary that we are living that life, that this is the world we’re in. It’s actually happening, and what are we going to do? … How are we going to get out of this? How are we going to mend after [Trump] has gone?
“If we’ve learned anything, it’s protest. People coming out into the street and doing something … Don’t stay quiet in the corner. How hugely important it is to speak up and pay attention.”
It will be impossible to not recall these real-life scenes when watching one episode of the upcoming series this month. Again, a gut-wrenching flashback to how Gilead took power that will no doubt do the rounds on TikTok, too. But the part that might make it “more relevant than ever” is the way Dowd’s character responds.
The Testaments isn’t just a tale of suffering and revolution. It’s about complicity – and the slow process of unpicking the damage that’s been done.
Based on Atwood’s 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel of the same name, The Testaments crucially shifts perspective away from June (or Offred, as she is solely known in the novel) to her one-time tormenter Aunt Lydia and two teenage girls Lydia is now mentoring at an elite school inside Gilead. Agnes (played by One Battle After Another breakout star Chase Infiniti) is the daughter of a high-ranking commander being trained for her duties as a wife, and Daisy (Lucy Halliday) is a “pearl girl”, an outsider who has ventured into Gilead after a troubled life.
“It’s set three to four years after [the events of The Handmaid’s Tale], so Aunt Lydia has had time to catch her breath and reorder her life,” Dowd says. “What happens at the end of the series is a very powerful thing for Lydia, and puts her in a place where she could either give up, or choose to face who she is and what she has done.
“What she has done has caused great harm, and I think she did hear, and she did listen, and she has evolved as a result. I’m very proud of her.”
Dowd consistently speaks with great love for Aunt Lydia, despite the character’s misdeeds. This is, let’s not forget, an enforcer for a fascist regime who has been personally responsible for the rape, mutilation and torture of innocent women. But the 70-year-old actor has made her career carefully extracting the humanity out of people who do horrific things.
Though Dowd has worked steadily across screen and stage since the early ’90s, her critical breakthrough came in 2012 playing a fast-food chain manager who was conned into abusing a co-worker in Compliance. She then earned her first Emmy nominations in 2017 for both Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale and Patti Levin in HBO series The Leftovers, the latter of which was a chain-smoking and deeply disturbing post-apocalyptic cult leader who eventually breaks her vow of silence to psychologically torment Justin Theroux. Then there was her seemingly nice role in horror film Hereditary…
As one GQ profile read that same year, “her resume reads like a who’s who of f---ing terrors”. For the record, Dowd says she would love to do more comedy. But she’s certainly not mad about extending the life of her darkest role to date.
“I’ve enjoyed [playing Lydia] immensely, and I’m very grateful for my time with her,” she says, praising both the writers of the series and Atwood as original creator (Dowd also voiced Lydia’s sections of the audiobook for the 2019 novel). “I’ve never had a character that I’ve known for that length of time. And there’s something extremely rewarding about it, coming to develop her so well and seeing the different sides of her.
“I think there are many things about Gilead that Lydia appreciated, and her belief in God and her desire to bring change to the lives of young women, young girls, is alive and well in her [for this series].”
Though Dowd has missed her old Handmaid co-stars greatly, she’s also enjoyed ushering in a new era of performers, who bring a very different energy. “I’m the oldest one there. That’s a funny feeling,” she says. “But I can tell you that working with these young women has been fantastic. They’re extremely hard-working. They know what they’re doing. They know who those characters are.”
Despite being one of the most terrifying women on TV, Dowd is kind and soft-spoken and generous about everyone except herself. She says she doesn’t watch her work back because “depending on my state of mind, I’m very critical of what I do – and I think that’s really boring. It takes away from the greatness of the show and of your fellow actors”.
When I say that I often cringe at my speaking voice or questions when listening to interviews, she provides very earnest encouragement and says I’m doing a great job.
Dowd also proudly tells me Infiniti won the National Board of Review Award for best breakout performance for her role in One Battle After Another earlier this year, too – incidentally another story about generational conflict against authoritarianism. It’s the same category Dowd won for Compliance, and she was asked to present the award.
“I felt so honoured … and very proud of her,” she says.
But don’t mistake this sequel series as Dowd passing the baton to keep a franchise alive. As book fans will know, this is very much Aunt Lydia’s story. And it doesn’t finish with these 10 episodes.
“It’s going to take us – we hope – five seasons to tell this story,” Dowd says, passionately. “It’s a powerful one. And boy, it puts Lydia in a very different place at the end of it all. It would be wonderful if we had all that time. I think it’s well worth it.”
The Testaments premieres April 8 on Disney+.
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