{"id":378176,"date":"2026-04-06T16:57:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378176\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T16:57:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T16:57:09","slug":"the-testaments-cast-on-how-their-show-mirrors-our-real-life-dystopia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/378176\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Testaments\u2019 Cast on How Their Show Mirrors Our Real-Life Dystopia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Testaments arrives this week, bringing viewers back to the world of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a> with a different perspective. This time around, we dive into Gilead\u2019s misogynistic, oppressive regime from the point of view of teenage girls<\/a> who are being groomed to wed the country\u2019s elite leaders.<\/p>\n

The show\u2019s main characters may be the daughters of powerful Commanders, but as the show itself explicitly explains in its opening moments, privilege does not protect them from Gilead\u2019s prodigious violence. That includes emotional and physical abuse inflicted by parents, teachers, and other adults they\u2019re supposed to trust. It also encompasses the terror that flows through the air in Gilead, where breaking a rule could mean having a finger chopped off\u2014or something much, much worse.<\/p>\n

While The Testaments is a work of fiction, a worst-case scenario of the religious right elevated to absolute power, the new show can at times feel like a reflection of our reality. Similar to The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a>, the Margaret Atwood adaptation creates a world that feels eerily like something that could potentially happen.<\/p>\n

\"ThetestamentsAunt Vidala (Mabel Li) with Becka (Mattea Conforti) and Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard). \u00a9 Disney\/Russ Martin <\/p>\n

At a recent Testaments press day, io9 asked the cast and showrunner Bruce Miller if they thought their show would be received similarly to The Handmaid\u2019s Tale in that respect\u2014will viewers pick up on parallels between the its story and our real-life dystopia? We also asked if that was something they thought about while they were making the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, indeed,\u201d Ann Dowd said. She returns to The Testaments as Aunt Lydia, the character she won an Emmy for playing in The Handmaid\u2019s Tale. \u201cThe treatment of women, losing Roe v. Wade, the rise of the white man as ruler of the day, patriarchal society, the extraordinarily dangerous person we have as president\u2014you couldn\u2019t get more relevant. Authoritarianism, the whole thing. It\u2019s terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mabel Li, who plays Aunt Lydia\u2019s colleague Aunt Vidala, agreed. \u201cAbsolutely. It was on my mind the entire time as well. I think what Margaret Atwood does so incredibly is that she shows how fascist states are created and maintained, and I think unfortunately we\u2019re seeing that across the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The younger cast members also felt the importance of the legacy they\u2019re carrying on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were acutely aware of the impact that The Handmaid\u2019s Tale had had in real time,\u201d said Lucy Halliday, who plays Daisy. \u201cThe costume of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale became emblematic for protest in reality, and the weight of that precedent was felt by us stepping into this world because we want to do it justice, and we want people to feel represented or inspired by The Testaments the same way that they did for The Handmaid\u2019s Tale.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued. \u201cAnd I think what did resonate with viewers [are] there are so many facets of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale and The Testaments that they could see themselves in or that they\u2019ve experienced in their lives \u2026 I\u2019d like to think The Testaments continues to resonate with audiences or people continue to feel represented in a way or empowered in a way that The Handmaid\u2019s Tale also does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThetestamentsDaisy (Lucy Halliday) and Agnes (Chase Infiniti). \u00a9 Disney\/Russ Martin <\/p>\n

Chase Infiniti, who plays Agnes, agreed. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we were aware of while we were shooting,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I think also a lot of it that comes into play, especially with The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, is the original books that Margaret Atwood wrote are based off of history. All the events that happen are not, I guess, original in that sense. The Handmaid\u2019s Tale and The Testaments \u2026 can also be a cautionary tale in a way, but also a way to hold a mirror up to society because there are things that happen in the show that are unfortunately still happening today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Showrunner Bruce Miller echoed the same thoughts. \u201cI do think [with] The Testaments people will find a lot of parallels with our world. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve always found in Margaret\u2019s work: she puts her finger on these friction points that never seemed to go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI read The Handmaid\u2019s Tale when I was in college, and then I made [the show] 30 years later. People said, \u2018Oh my gosh, that\u2019s exactly when you should have [made it].\u2019 [But] anywhere along those 30 years when I read it, I was like, \u2018Wow, it seems like she wrote it for this time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope people like the television show and are entertained, and I hope they think about it that deeply. That would be wonderful. But given Margaret\u2019s track record in terms of prescience, I would bet that there are things in there that are things women have been struggling with\u2014a majority of women have been struggling with\u2014in our world for a very long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThetestamentsAnn Dowd as Aunt Lydia. \u00a9 Russ Martin\/Disney <\/p>\n

The first three episodes of The Testaments arrive April 8 on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, with a weekly rollout thereafter.<\/p>\n

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Testaments arrives this week, bringing viewers back to the world of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale with a different…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[170747,181173,19814,146,6622,85,46,181174,181175,71303,112955,118152,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-378176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-ann-dowd","9":"tag-bruce-miller","10":"tag-chase-infiniti","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-hulu","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-lucy-halliday","16":"tag-mabel-li","17":"tag-margaret-atwood","18":"tag-the-handmaids-tale","19":"tag-the-testaments","20":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}