EXCLUSIVE: The Burden of 'Handmaid's Tale' Star Yvonne Strahovski

By
Hulu

“I didn’t know if I could play her,” says Yvonne Strahovski,
who plays Serena Joy Waterford on Hulu’s near-future dystopian series, The Handmaid’s Tale, which tells the
stories of women trying to survive within the totalitarian and Christian
fundamentalist government of Gilead, which has taken over what remains of the
United States. The first three episodes premiered on April 26.

Most famous for playing Sarah Walker on the action-comedy
series Chuck for five seasons and
later for recurring roles on Dexter
and 24: Live Another Day, The Handmaid’s Tale is unlike any show
Strahovski has been a part of. “It’s kind of incomparable,” she says of her
past work, particularly Chuck, which
first premiered 10 years ago. “It’s always a learning curve. I feel like a
different person now embarking on this project, The Handmaid’s Tale.”

On the show, which is adapted from Margaret Atwood’s celebrated 1985 novel and was recently renewed for a second season, Strahovski plays a barren
Commander’s wife, who is in charge of running a household that includes handmaids -- in
this particular home, Offred (Elisabeth Moss) -- who are still fertile despite the
society’s declining birth rates. The handmaids are subjected to ritualized rape
by the Commander of whose household they are living in in order to provide
children to him and his wife.

As a woman who subjects Offred to her husband while also
punishing her for not getting pregnant, Serena Joy is very much a villain in
this story. At times, she is resentful of Offred, angry and unapproachable. “She’s
not someone I relate to easily and she’s not someone I have -- even to this day -- all
figured out. [Serena Joy] is everything you don’t really want in your life,”
Strahovski admits, adding that she spent each night with Serena Joy as she
tried to figure the puzzle of who she is in her head. “It was really hard
leaving that baggage [on set] and to come home and relax. It was always at the
forefront of my mind.”

MORE: Claire Danes Narrates 'The Handmaid's Tale' Featuring New Afterword by Author Margaret Atwood

With the story told from Offred’s perspective, not all of
Serena Joy’s motivations are immediately clear to both the audience and the
actress tasked with bringing her to life onscreen. “That was a process and it
still is,” Strahovski says while adding that Serena Joy is also oppressed in
many ways. The suffering on the show is not limited to the handmaids -- it extends
up the food chain to the barren matriarchs who must watch each night as their
husbands have sex with other women in order to populate their households. “I
don’t know how anyone is comfortable in that kind of situation. She’s a woman
of faith. Her government and scripture, which is all intertwined, is telling
her this is the right thing to do. But at the same time, you’re sitting there
and watching your husband have sex with another woman right in front of you.”

“She is one of the oppressors as well as suffering herself
in this society,” the actress continues, adding that Serena Joy is also deeply
saddened by the fact that she can’t get pregnant and provide her husband and
society with a newborn. “And because she has to rely on somebody else, it’s
going to be at that person’s expense. She will do what it takes to survive.”

A stark difference from the book is the fact that Serena Joy,
who was originally much older, is now the same age as her handmaid. Both
Strahovski and Moss are 34, adding new layers to the power dynamic between their
onscreen characters. On paper, Serena Joy is technically more powerful as the
wife of an elite member of society, but Offred is the one who is fertile. “You
have these two women, who outside Gilead maybe could have been friends. They
could have maybe related to each other once upon a time. But they’re in a
society where they’re pitted against each other,” the actress says.

Adding new layers of context and resonance is also the fact that
Donald Trump was elected President of the United States just as the show began
filming and issues surrounding women’s rights have become threatened by the new
administration. On The Handmaid’s Tale,
women are stripped of any control -- not allowed to work, have money or even read,
not to mention what happens to their bodies. “We explore a lot of the brutality
that could happen in that kind of society and I feel like the show does it in a
way that it doesn’t feel like it could be that far away,” Strahovski says of
the parallels between what’s happening in real life and on the show. “It’s a
very scary warning sign.”

But despite the burden of playing Serena Joy on a show as
dark and as frighteningly relevant as The
Handmaid’s Tale
, Strahovski says being part of the series feels like a
playground “because everyone is very invested and very much in the moment.” And
that moment is now.

New episodes of The
Handmaid’s Tale stream Wednesdays on Hulu.