{"id":381155,"date":"2026-04-08T09:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/381155\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:49:11","slug":"ann-dowd-i-havent-been-hired-for-my-looks-so-ive-never-depended-upon-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/381155\/","title":{"rendered":"Ann Dowd: \u2018I haven\u2019t been hired for my looks, so I\u2019ve never depended upon them\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your support helps us to tell the story<\/p>\n

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.<\/p>\n

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.<\/p>\n

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.<\/p>\n

Your support makes all the difference.Read more<\/p>\n

A fan once saw Ann Dowd<\/a> on an escalator and ran away, terrified. That\u2019s how convincing the actor has been as the tyrannical Aunt Lydia across six seasons of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale. In the drama \u2013 set in the totalitarian, theocratic Republic of Gilead where women are forced to reproduce \u2013 she has tortured those who resist the regime, beaten them with cattle prods and even ordered the removal of one poor girl\u2019s eye. <\/p>\n

Many who meet the real Dowd are struck by how warm and kind she is. I can back all this up \u2013 Aunt Lydia would never call me \u201cdarling\u201d or \u201csweetie pie\u201d, but Dowd does. And she\u2019s sensitive, tears pooling in her eyes as she talks about emotional roles. But, actually, she is similar to Aunt Lydia in one way. There\u2019s a steeliness, a strength, that the two share. Aunt Lydia can be a sadistic maniac of course, and worlds away from Dowd, but, my god, she has mettle. \u201cWe\u2019re very close, the two of us,\u201d Dowd tells me of the character. \u201cShe\u2019s a dear friend. I learn from her, she learns from me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aunt Lydia has perplexed fans ever since the first series of the drama, adapted from Margaret Atwood<\/a>\u2019s seminal 1985 novel, landed on screens in 2017. Underneath her cruelty, if you squint, there is a tenderness; often, her actions actually protect the handmaids from worse fates. All women are victims in Gilead \u2013 but Aunt Lydia, as a survival tactic, positions herself as a leader, as much as she can be within that system. In the timely new sequel <\/a>that arrives this week, The Testaments<\/a>, audiences will finally get a chance to learn more about Lydia\u2019s life before the regime took hold, and how she was forced to comply or die. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to understanding her more myself,\u201d says Dowd.<\/p>\n

We meet for tea in one of the bars at Raffles Hotel in London. Dowd, 70 and a petite 5ft 3in, is tucked into the corner of a Chesterfield sofa. Usually, as the austere Aunt Lydia, Dowd\u2019s hair is a mousy brown and pulled back from her face, but today it is strawberry blonde with a fringe. Through the window, she peers out at the Royal Horse Guards on Whitehall; she is full of questions about the UK (\u201cwho is your prime minister now, and how is that going?\u201d), and compliments (\u201cI love the way you all talk, \u2018a little splash of milk\u2019, perfect\u201d). <\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to talk about The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a> and The Testaments without getting political. This is the show that led to women\u2019s rights activists donning the handmaids\u2019 infamous red cloaks and white bonnets in protest marches, in retaliation to the reversal of Roe v Wade in the US and anti-abortion laws in Northern Ireland. \u201cI felt so privileged to be a part of something that leaves your living room and goes into the street where it belongs,\u201d Dowd says. \u201cProtesting, standing up for what you believe, staying alert, putting your phone down and putting on that costume \u2013 it just felt like such a tribute to the show, to Margaret Atwood.\u201d It was depressing too, I say, that our contemporary reality was reflecting the events of the dystopian show. \u201cSo depressing,\u201d she shakes her head. \u201cBut no time for depression \u2013 stand up and act, do something \u2013 and that\u2019s what these brave women did.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dowd\u2019sDowd\u2019s formidable Aunt Lydia in \u2018The Testaments\u2019 (Disney)<\/p>\n

Dowd doesn\u2019t think playing Aunt Lydia has necessarily galvanised her and made her more invested in women\u2019s rights \u2013 it\u2019s just a result of living as a woman in the modern world. \u201cI think being a citizen in the United States, in New York City, and seeing and hearing what\u2019s happened to our democracy, it’s just terrible. It\u2019s interesting, with Margaret Atwood, people call her a prophet and say that she sees into the future, but she said no, no, her homework was in the past, in history, everything that she wrote has happened somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a poignant bit of voiceover in The Testaments, where Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a young woman who\u2019s entered Gilead after growing up in free Canada, talks about how the regime didn\u2019t just arrive overnight. \u201cThere were signs of what was coming,\u201d she says. \u201cCandidates running for office had said things openly, about women, about gays, but they still were elected. People thought they were speaking in hyperbole. Now, women can\u2019t have jobs or watch films or read books, and gay people, well, we know what happened to them.\u201d It feels like a direct call-out of Trump\u2019s misogynistic rhetoric. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so sorry. I\u2019m sorry for every other country everywhere on this earth. He\u2019s so messed up,\u201d says Dowd. \u201cAnd he has so many followers, which is extraordinary. How does this happen when a man is as childish and awful as he is, and who believes what he believes? And it\u2019s the second time around for him.\u201d She holds her hands up. \u201cSomehow this country brought it to its own place.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dowd:Dowd: \u2018I\u2019m looking forward to understanding Aunt Lydia more myself\u2019 (Disney)<\/p>\n

Conversation turns to the \u201cmanosphere\u201d, and the rising prevalence of misogyny in young men. \u201cThe Handmaid’s Tale was exceptional because it gave us a voice,\u201d she says, \u201cit gave us a way, every day, to put our frustration and fear and anger into the performance. But I mean, what’s more terrifying than that, than young men following Andrew Tate? How can you be so lost as to think that\u2019s the way, and that women are inferior? It\u2019s baffling to me. And based on what, you know? Based on fear, of being less-than.\u201d <\/p>\n

She asks lots of questions about how the manosphere is impacting boys in the UK, and is appalled to hear of reports that male pupils have been abusing their female teachers<\/a>. Then something extraordinary happens: Dowd seems to transform into Aunt Lydia. Her voice takes on a tremor and she points across the table as if addressing a young boy. \u201cYou may leave the classroom if you\u2019re not interested in participating.\u201d A pause. Eyes wide. \u201cI just went to Aunt Lydia. Honestly, I didn\u2019t even think of it.\u201d She laughs. \u201cShe\u2019s just within reach when you need her, and that just shocked me a little bit. I haven\u2019t spoken to her since yesterday. Good way to wake up in the morning!\u201d<\/p>\n

On most mornings for the past four decades, Dowd has been waking up in the same housing development in Chelsea, New York. She\u2019s lived there with her actor husband Lawrence Arancio since 1989 \u2013 at first without kids, when she would fearlessly cycle around Manhattan, and later with their daughter and two sons. Since Trump took office, has Dowd ever thought about leaving her carefully crafted habitat? \u201cI have thought about it, but the United States of America is my country. It\u2019s where I was born. It\u2019s a place where I will stay and fight if need be. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the United States, we\u2019re in dreadful shape, but I don\u2019t see it as a time to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond Aunt Lydia, Dowd has made a name for herself in playing harrowed, profoundly flawed characters. She brings an aching authenticity to everyone she inhabits, whether it\u2019s a fast food restaurant manager caught up in a disturbing scam in 2012\u2019s Sundance hit Compliance, a cult leader in HBO drama The Leftovers or the manipulative Joan in 2018 horror Hereditary. But, as a mother, one of the roles that cut closest to the bone was that of a grieving parent in 2021\u2019s Mass, which is being adapted for the UK stage at the Donmar Warehouse next month. Shot in eight intense days, with almost the entire story unfolding around a single table in a church function room, the film followed two couples who meet several years after a school shooting to discuss the tragedy. Dowd played the mother of the boy who killed his classmates. \u201cIt was about the loss of a son who has lost himself,\u201d she says, shaking her head. \u201cI can\u2019t even imagine.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"DowdDowd as a grieving mother in \u2018Mass\u2019 (Bleecker Street)<\/p>\n

She clearly finds the film hard to talk about, and becomes tearful. She hopes parents watch films like Mass and shows like The Testaments with their children, and that they will spark difficult conversations. \u201cParents, when you see something that moves you, let it move you in front of your child,\u201d she says. \u201cLead by example, use your words to explain, but don\u2019t try to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n

After making the film, the cast \u2013 Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton and Reed Birney \u2013 met with a mother whose daughter had been killed in a real mass shooting. \u201cIt was a profound privilege,\u201d Dowd says. \u201cWhen we went into the room and sat down, the only thing I could do was weep.\u201d Now, she takes off her sand-coloured glasses to wipe away tears. \u201cI couldn\u2019t speak a word to her because it was so profound. I\u2019ll never forget it. She didn\u2019t give up on life.” Dowd recalls how the mother opened a zoo in her child\u2019s memory. “You could tell she had been through it. Such a powerful vessel of strength.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dowd turned 70 in January, and it\u2019s not lost on her that the older she gets, the meatier her roles become. After all, she was 56 when her breakthrough role came in Compliance. \u201cWomen who are older, to me, they\u2019ve been through so much, and what they bring to a story is extraordinary, and I think that\u2019s becoming more obvious to writers. Don\u2019t leave them out because they\u2019re in their sixties.\u201d She says that the interesting, juicy stuff is \u201cjust beginning in a certain way\u201d \u2013 \u201cI look back now, in these last years, to decisions I made or experiences I had and that is the nature of turning older: learning from the past, moving forward, expanding one\u2019s vision. It\u2019s a time when women should be hired to play beautiful, complex roles.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Hollywood sometimes seems to be allergic to ageing stars, especially women, Dowd has swerved pressures to look younger. \u201cI haven\u2019t been hired for my looks, so I\u2019ve never depended upon them and how I look in the mirror,\u201d she says, matter-of-factly. \u201cI feel for these women who believe they\u2019ve got to get into a younger place instead of allowing their face to make the changes and tell part of the story. I\u2019ve thankfully never been tempted, even, to do so. My heart goes out to them \u2013 darlings, don\u2019t do it.\u201d She once had dark marks from the sun removed, but when they came back a month later she gave herself a pep talk. \u201cOK, you learned a little lesson there, Missy,\u201d she recalls thinking. \u201cGet a hold of yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tweakments have become so common now in Hollywood that casting directors, such as Hamnet\u2019s Nina Gold, are looking to Britain to cast actors with more \u201cramshackle\u201d faces. \u201cOh my god,\u201d says Dowd, \u201chow about some of the most wonderful stars, they were such terrific actors and they made a huge couple of hits, and the next thing you know, you don\u2019t recognise them.\u201d <\/p>\n

All that said, she has found turning 70 \u201ca little bit scary\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to prepare yourself because there\u2019s something about 70 that seems terribly old, and getting older is difficult in certain ways. Your health struggles, you\u2019re faced with certain changes and you have to decide, how am I going to age? Am I going to complain and just sit in the corner and say, \u2018I don\u2019t like what\u2019s happening\u2019, or are you going to stand up and get healthy and find solutions to problems and keep going and keep keeping the world open to you?\u201d<\/p>\n

A new adventure Dowd would like to embark on in this decade is leaning into the world of comedy. She had a hilarious cameo in the final season of Girls, as a university department head who offers Lena Dunham\u2019s Hannah a job and calls her breasts \u201cgorgeous fruit\u201d; she says she had a \u201cblast\u201d doing it. She wants more roles like this (and has one coming up, as a sci-fi character, painted entirely blue, at a fan convention in Hacks). \u201cI have a sense of humour \u2013 it would be wonderful to use it in my career,\u201d she says with a chuckle. There you have it. Ann Dowd: warm, steely and funny. You\u2019d have to be mad to run away.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Testaments\u2019 is now available to stream on Disney+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-381155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381155","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=381155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}