{"id":394345,"date":"2026-04-16T00:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394345\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:34:11","slug":"the-testaments-creator-explains-daisy-book-change-eyes-3-5-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/394345\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Testaments’ Creator Explains Daisy Book Change, Eyes 3-5 Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn The Testaments<\/a>, Lucy Halliday plays Daisy, a Toronto teen turned undercover Mayday agent at a Gilead girls finishing school.\u00a0She\u2019s the character that brought Elisabeth Moss<\/a>\u2018 June Osborne back into the franchise \u2014 as June is Daisy\u2019s handler. Moss\u2019 onscreen return was a casting coup<\/a> that was kept secret<\/a> until Hulu<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u00a0sequel series premiered. (Daisy was also code-named \u201cDanielle\u201d <\/a>in the script to keep Halliday\u2019s character under wraps.)<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Margaret Atwood<\/a>\u2018s The Testaments novel on which the series is based<\/a>, however, the Daisy character is very different. In that story, (spoiler from the book!) Daisy is actually June\u2019s second daughter, who Handmaid\u2019s Tale viewers know as baby Nichole\/Holly. But when creator Bruce Miller<\/a> and his team decided to jump the sequel series ahead only four years from the end of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/a>, instead of 15 years like the book, they had to make this key character change. So Miller turned her into someone around the same age of starring character Agnes \u2014 June\u2019s first daughter who is played by Chase Infiniti. Daisy isn\u2019t biologically related to either June or Agnes, but Miller made sure to keep the essence of who Daisy is \u2014 a fighter, like June (and Agnes).<\/p>\n

\n\tBelow, Miller explains that key change and also looks ahead to how many seasons he hopes The Testaments will go, and whether or not he has a final scene in mind.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen we did our oral history <\/a>at the end of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, you revealed that Margaret Atwood gave you a no-kill list for the series once she started writing The Testaments. You couldn\u2019t kill Aunt Lydia (the returning character played by Ann Dowd), or June or either of June\u2019s daughters. But when you decided to jump four years ahead, instead of 15, that complicated baby Holly, because that would make her 4 instead of a teen like the original Daisy character in the book. How did you decide to update Daisy into the character we see played by Lucy Halliday, and was that the biggest change you made?<\/p>\n

\n\tYes, and it was the biggest challenge. When making Handmaids, I followed the \u201cwhen in doubt, follow Margaret\u201d policy. And it worked very, very well. Not just out of fealty to her or to the book, but practically, she\u2019s a very good storyteller. Sometimes there are things that I don\u2019t understand, even though I\u2019ve read that book for 30 years, and it\u2019s great that I can put this in the show and it\u2019s really interesting, even though I didn\u2019t quite know how it would go. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo with The Testaments<\/a>, I was trying very hard to do the same thing. There are differences in the timelines between the show and the book. TV goes at a different place. She can go any time with a novel. In the novel The Testaments, the Daisy and Agnes characters are very different in age. So, they wouldn\u2019t ever be together the way they are in the show. <\/p>\n

\n\tI didn\u2019t want to make any changes at all, but I felt like I wanted to have Daisy and Agnes physically together, and not tell their stories 15 years apart like they do in the book. So it was very hard and I didn\u2019t want to do it, but Daisy is not Nichole\/Holly. Holly exists in the series and she\u2019s a child \u2014 you see her boots in one scene and there are little hints that she\u2019s out there. But I tried to change as little else as I could. <\/p>\n

\n\tI tried to make June very much a mother figure in Daisy [Halliday]\u2019s life \u2014\u00a0an absent mother figure, but a mother figure she knew. June had the notoriety that Nichole had in the book. And I tried to cast someone who looked similar or reminiscent of June. I tried to keep the essence of Nichole as much as possible with our Daisy, but still make her her own character and her own person. I had to make a decision. I didn\u2019t want to bend time and tell everybody the time space continuum isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tChase Infiniti as Agnes with Lucy Halliday as Daisy in The Testaments.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDisney\/Steve Wilkie<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale was such a pivotal series for Hulu and went on for six seasons. How many seasons have you thought about or plotted out for The Testaments? And I know with Handmaid\u2019s, you always had the vision of what your final scene of the series would be. Do you have that same final vision you are working towards with The Testaments?<\/p>\n

\n\tI have a sense of where I want to end, but I don\u2019t have a scene of where I want to go. In terms of seasons, the flip answer is that when I start to work on any project, you want to be able to think of 200 episodes-worth of ideas. Because if you hit some crazy home run in success, you don\u2019t want to say, \u201cI\u2019m screwed. I don\u2019t have stuff.\u201d You want to feel like you have a real overflowing bucket of stories. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut realistically, and just thinking about how the world works, I wanted to have an ending. It can\u2019t be like an old TV show that just ends. That would be so unsatisfying. So I think just out of trying to end it in a satisfying way in the business environment that we exist in, I think of about 30 to 50 episodes. So three to five seasons. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd then, if we are lucky enough to get that, or we\u2019re lucky enough to get season two even, all of that will be wonderful. But I want to make sure I\u2019m not writing myself into a corner. I\u2019m always excited. If they decide I can do 10 more, great. This cast is so fascinating. We could write Agnes scenes for the rest of our lives. She\u2019s terrific.<\/p>\n

\n\tHow would you say you wrote a finale that sets up where you want to go in season two?<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason one is about an awakening. Your romantic awakening, your sexual awakening, the way your body awakens when you\u2019re 14 or 15. And the way your mind opens up to justice. That\u2019s what the season is about \u2014 their awakening to where they are and the world they\u2019re in. By the end of the season, those realities are laid bare even more. By the end, you want them to really understand where they are and what their future holds. At some point, she\u2019s going to find out more about her past, so then season two will be about: Who am I? I\u2019m awake, but who\u2019s awake? Who am I? <\/p>\n

\n\tWith The Handmaid\u2019s Tale, we always talked about how June was narrating the story, which meant she survived. Do you want a similar feeling for The Testament\u2018s voices who are telling this story, that we are hearing from women who got out of Gilead?<\/p>\n

\n\tI like the practical part of that, because half the show is voiceover. If you can\u2019t not tell your actor what room they\u2019re doing the voiceover in \u2014 what they\u2019re reading from or where that memory comes from. You have to come up with a real specific: \u201cDaisy, you are sitting in this room with a tape recorder, you\u2019re holding loose-leaf binder paper that you have written with a blue pen, and written all these notes down and you are reading along.\u201d Just saying, \u201cDo voiceover\u201d doesn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n

\n\tThey certainly all survive to record these Testaments. But none of us survive forever. Nobody survives forever.<\/p>\n

\n\t***<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Testaments is now streaming the first four episodes, with new episodes releasing Wednesdays on Hulu. Read more of THR\u2018s show coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In The Testaments, Lucy Halliday plays Daisy, a Toronto teen turned undercover Mayday agent at a Gilead girls…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[181173,39775,146,6622,85,46,71303,112955,118152,411],"class_list":{"0":"post-394345","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-bruce-miller","9":"tag-elisabeth-moss","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hulu","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-israel","14":"tag-margaret-atwood","15":"tag-the-handmaids-tale","16":"tag-the-testaments","17":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394345","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=394345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}