The star of the Handmaid’s Tale ‘servant, Yvonne Strahovski, wonders the redemption

“Never in my wildest dreams, I have imagined how significant it would become for so many people, in the world, and the legacy that it would leave behind,” said Yvonne Strahovski, who plays Serena Joy Waterford in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, during a recent interview with Indiewire.

While she is preparing for the last season of the Hulu series at the first this week, the Australian actress takes stock of Serena’s trip through six seasons. While Serena could easily have appeared as a bad guy to a note, since the start of her mandate on the series, Strahovski has permeated Serena of a soul that often puts the public uncomfortably on its side, despite its reprehensible actions.

When the adaptation of the series of Margaret Atwood’s novel in 1985 landed for the first time on the small screen in early 2017, it was hailed as the first big show in the Trump era. Eight years, six seasons, a pandemic, the double writers and actors hit 2023 and two presidents later, “The Handmaid’s Tale” Tightened by dropping only a few months after the second inauguration of President Trump.

The more things change, the more they remain the same …

Strahovski tries not to let the external noise affect her representation of Serena Joy, widow of Commander Waterford (Joseph Fiennes) and former mistress of the protagonist June Osborne (Elisabeth Moss, whose name is long ago, the name of the totalitarian state of Waterford brought her ritualist). However, she sees the impact. “It’s really cool to be part of something that is not only entertainment; it is a point of discussion for so many people for so many reasons,” said Strahovski.

After challenging Gilead by reading a biblical verse aloud and making the amputation of his finger as punishment in season 2 (women are not allowed to read in Gilead, despite Serena herself pregnant and widowed when June and her colleagues Handmaids beat Commander Waterford on the death of the Cathartic sorts this season. Good health and, therefore, it begins to see a new path to follow for Gilead, in the form of the Enclave de New Bethlehem, where women can read, have jobs, and even pants.

“Is the ultimate question with this character this season this season or will it not be redeemed or will not be redeemed, and will it be in black and white? In a new trailer of the season, we see Serena going down the aisle in a wedding dress, so she is always looking for a refuge in the institution of marriage-it seems that New Bethlem cannot be that different from Gilead.

Despite Serena’s dependence on men, for better or for worse, it was his connection with June which was the driving force of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. When we left them for the last time at the conclusion of season 5 (all in 2022), June and Serena met at the two ends of a train car heading towards Vancouver, their babies at the trailer: the newborn of Serena and the daughter of June Nichole (that Serena had already tried to fly).

Strahovski recalled a recent panel on which she and the distribution were on which the moderator showed early clips of the series, including the scene of season 1 in which Serena played with the older girl in June Hannah, who was taken by Gilead and who remains there (a driving factor for the continuous return of June in the country who brutalized her and her friends). June was forced to look from far while he was trapped in the Waterfords car. This waterfall illustrated in June that, if it came out of the line, Hannah would be even more danger than it was already, growing in Gilead.

“It was so difficult to look at this (again), and it sent me back in this time to remember, I don’t want to be that person!” Said Strahovski. “It was just horrible. It was really difficult to fight this scene and to be on this side of the scene when I really wanted to swim for June and what she was going through. ”

One of the characteristics of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is the strength of its actors to represent such reprehensible characters with such compassion and empathy, Strahovski in particular. “It was difficult to put aside your empathy for the other characters, mainly in June, and to simply try to look into a space without judgment with Serena and to try to go to (the place of) where her heart is, without the judgment,” she said.

It will be the ultimate test of this last season: “The Handmaid’s Tale” can provide a satisfactory conclusion for June, Moira (Samira Wiley), Janine (Madeline Brewer) and all the people wrong by Gilead? And what about those accomplices in its creation and its continuation?

Will they – including Serena – will receive their co -prone, whatever they could be? Or is there a way to go through Serena who restores justice to June and others that she has trouble while recognizing that she tried to change her ways? We will have to see, but Strahovski’s diaper performance guarantees that we will have a lot to observe.

Hulu will present the first three episodes of season 6 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” on Tuesday April 8. New episodes will be published every week.