'The Handmaid's Tale' stars on the evolution of their characters as series reaches its end

Transcript

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Amna Nawaz: “The Handmaid’s Tale” began as a 1985 novel read by generations. It’s since been turned into a film and an opera, and then, beginning in 2017, a hit series on Hulu, one now coming to an end.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has a look for our arts and culture series, Canvas.

Elisabeth Moss, Actress: For years, we have been afraid of them. Now it’s time for them to be afraid of us.

Jeffrey Brown: It’s time for a reckoning in Gilead, the fictional near-future theocratic dictatorship the U.S. has become in the hit Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” now beginning its sixth and final season.

Elisabeth Moss: Our audience has been very loyal and patient, and revolutions take time.

(Laughter)

Elisabeth Moss: Shut your mouth. Be a good girl.

Jeffrey Brown: Elisabeth Moss plays June Osborne, a handmaid, a category of women forced into sexual servitude as child-bearers in a future in which most women are infertile. In season one, viewers saw how she and most women have lost their freedoms, and in some cases had their children taken from them, as democracy was overthrown, and the country came under the control of a religious patriarchy.

In 2017, as the series was making its debut, Moss spoke to us about her character.

Elisabeth Moss: The heroine of the book is an anti-heroine, that she’s a human, that she’s a wife, a mom, is a normal person, and then is sort of picked up, taken and dropped into this scenario, and has to figure out how to survive.

Jeffrey Brown: We talked again recently as the series prepared to reach its end.

Six seasons later, she has done a lot of fighting, a lot of surviving.

Elisabeth Moss: A lot of surviving, and I think in the interim six years, I do think that she has become more of a hero, which is really interesting to hear that quote and hear where I was coming from and what I was thinking at that time.

And I was absolutely right. And I think in the six seasons, I mean, very quickly, probably in that first season, she definitely became not a normal person, and she became a heroine. And I think that — but I also think that she became the heroine in the way that you or I would have to in those circumstances.

Jeffrey Brown: The series is based on the classic 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, who mixed elements of past totalitarian systems with strains of American life to write what she calls speculative fiction.

In 2019, as she was releasing her sequel, “The Testaments,” she defined that to us.

Margaret Atwood, Author, “The Handmaid’s Tale”: The series as well as the book and as well as “The Testaments” follow one axiom, and that is you can’t put anything in that doesn’t have a precedent.

Jeffrey Brown: After season one of the series, the tale ventured well beyond the original book, creating new plot twists, giving other characters larger roles and their own backstories.

Yvonne Strahovski, Actress: God has a plan for me, and I cannot hide from his plan anymore.

Jeffrey Brown: One of those, Serena Joy, life of one of Gilead’s leaders. When we first meet her, she’s seemingly a true believer in its system, even as other women suffer.

Yvonne Strahovski: It really has been a place where I have never really died a creative death, because it is so tricky and difficult, and she’s such an interesting character to play.

I know what people think of the things that I have done.

Actress: What do you think of the things you have done?

Jeffrey Brown: Yvonne Strahovski plays Serena Joy, one of the most complex characters in the series, who comes to see the system for what it is, but whose actions raise issues of response and complicity.

Yvonne Strahovski: She sees it, and then she goes right back into her ways, and then she sees it again, and then she goes right back into it, and it’s so complex and nuanced, the writing.

Jeffrey Brown: It’s been six seasons, but with production time, the pandemic, and the writers and actors strikes, the series actually unspooled over nine years.

Elisabeth Moss, who many got to know for her role on “Mad Men,” has been involved throughout as executive producer and as an occasional director, as well as the lead.

Elisabeth Moss: Lucas in jail. He was arrested for defending me. The man who ran me over died.

Jeffrey Brown: Is it hard to sustain a series over so long a period? Is it hard to sustain a character?

Elisabeth Moss: It’s why I love television. I was thinking about this the other day. There’s something that happens in season six that you just — you don’t get to do and you don’t get any impact from if you don’t have six or five seasons of story to look back on, and it takes nine years to get there.

And I love that.

Jeffrey Brown: The final season, like the first, is airing at the start of a new Trump administration. For many, its themes have spoken to ongoing battles over women’s rights. And the handmaids themselves have become cultural figures beyond the screen.

Yvonne Strahovski: I find it incredibly just fascinating how aligned our show has been to the political climate and what we’re living through, especially in the states, is sort of almost like a psychic alignment of art imitating life and vice versa.

Elisabeth Moss: You know, sometimes, shows go through something where they’re, oh, now it feels like people are drawing parallels. But I have never had a moment where this show hasn’t been relevant.

You did that interview with us seven years ago and here we are. It’s still — we’re having the same conversation.

Let the revolution begin.

Jeffrey Brown: No spoiler alerts here, but the trailer for season six does tell us that an uprising is at hand, some relief in Gilead and for faithful viewers.

Elisabeth Moss: A lot of people are living through dark times right now, and all over the world. And we really wanted to provide something that was maybe a bit of, yes, just lightness and hope and positivity. That’s not to say — of course, we’re still “The Handmaid’s Tale.” There’s still darkness. We can’t walk away from that. It wouldn’t be an honest show or an honest story.

But we did try to give some light at the end of the tunnel.

Jeffrey Brown: And for you personally, given these various roles you have played in the series, does it feel like the right time to bring it to an end?

Elisabeth Moss: I would never end it if I had the choice.

(Laughter)

Elisabeth Moss: I would keep going. Another next 10 years would be totally fine with me.

Rise up and fight.

Jeffrey Brown: That won’t happen, but the creator of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Bruce Miller, is now working on its sequel, “The Testaments.”

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown.