In The Testaments, the sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale, Agnes (Chase Infiniti) grows up at a school for Pearl Girls in Gilead run by Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and meets Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a newcomer from Canada who has chosen to give up her old life, as they begin to learn what’s actually true about the world around them.
Awards Buzz spoke with Infiniti and Halliday about coming off One Battle After Another and California Schemin’, respectively, to take on this high-stakes project. Halliday shared how daunting that was:
“Coming into this, we definitely felt a responsibility. The Handmaid’s Tale was so beloved and it had such a strong fan base, and it was prolific in enacting real impact in society that we, neither one of us, wanted to be the cog in the machine that screwed it up and then everyone was like, ugh, you’ve ruined it. So I think we really did everything that we could to prepare for it. We read the books, watched the show, spoke to everyone who would speak to us, and I think we just wanted to be as prepared as possible because we wanted to do this well, and we wanted to do it justice. It’s so great getting to step into this world.”
Infiniti spoke to how she was able to relate to someone who doesn’t know how much she doesn’t know:
“I think for the both of us, we really did our research beforehand, watching the shows, reading the book as we were saying, using our resources, Elisabeth Moss, Bruce Miller, Ann Dowd. But on top of that, again, a lot of the stuff that Margaret Atwood writes is based off of history. So, unfortunately, it’s not hard to do the necessary research to find stories that are like that of people who have grown up with a very limited mindset and worldview. So I think that, on top of using our resources in that way, and also doing our research as well, those molded together very beautifully, at least for me discovering Agnes, what that was like.”
Watch the video above to hear what traits they like best – about each other’s characters.
The Testaments premieres on Wednesday, April 8th, with new episodes dropping weekly through the season finale on May 27th.
