Samira Wiley on The Handmaid’s Tale’s relevance and feminism in 2017
“Of course this show is a feminist work.”
When I stepped out of the elevator at the Wing (“a home base and social club for women in New York”), I could’ve been walking into any trendy New York City party packed with women in ankle boots and fitted overalls, held in a venue where the walls are lined with bookshelves painstakingly organized by color.
But I wasn’t there to drink spritzers or eat charcoal emulsions in cucumber cups (though, okay, I did that, too). I was there to see a panel on Hulu’s new adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale and to talk to actor Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black) about her crucial role of Moira, who was best friends with main character Offred (played by Elisabeth Moss) before their world went to hell.
Ever since Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale in 1985, it’s been consistently heralded as both subversive and painfully relevant. The novel imagines a United States under a martial, fundamentalist rule that, among other things, enslaves fertile women as “Handmaids” to build up the country’s dwindling population during a fertility crisis. More than 30 years later, The Handmaid’s Tale is now experiencing a revived presence in pop culture and beyond. In January, for example, it inspired countless signs at Women’s Marches worldwide the day after Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.
Hulu’s stunning TV adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale premieres on April 26. The network is going all in with its promotion, recognizing that the show it greenlit before the election has since become something of a depressing rallying cry in response to the new administration. The Handmaid’s Tale’s first full trailer premiered during the Super Bowl. Hulu sent silent Handmaids to Austin’s trendy South by Southwest tech conference in March, and held the show’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21. The following day, it held a panel at the Wing featuring Wiley, her co-star Yvonne Strahovski, and Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory, with bowls of “don’t let the bastards grind you down” keychains scattered throughout the Wing’s pastel pink loft.
For the people involved in bringing The Handmaid’s Tale to life, the new Hulu series represents a particularly intimate, visceral, and unusual experience. So a few minutes before the panel at the Wing, I sat down with Wiley to talk about the pressures of getting The Handmaid’s Tale right, her spitfire character Moira, and — despite what her co-star Moss said at the show’s controversial Tribeca panel about not seeing the show as “a feminist story” — being unafraid to acknowledge the story’s feminist roots.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Caroline Framke
Moira is my favorite character in the book, because even though everyone in the book feels very real, she feels the most grounded in maybe an experience that I know, or at least she feels like someone I’d be friends with.
Samira Wiley
Exactly. Or someone you would want to be friends with.
Caroline Framke
Was it strange playing her as that outgoing person and then as a Handmaid?
Samira Wiley
She’s the same person, you know what I mean? All of them are. They just got caught up in this crazy world and have to suppress parts of themselves — but only parts of themselves. Every single other part is still the same, and all of those parts that they’re suppressing are still there, just right under the surface. So it was just [considering] what parts do I play up, what parts do I play down, but always remembering that there’s, like, a toolbox. And everything is in that toolbox, but maybe for this scene I only use the hammer and the ... uh, whatever else tool you use. [laughs]
Caroline Framke
When you were up for a role in The Handmaid’s Tale, was there any one thing in particular that made you go, “I have to do this”?
Samira Wiley
I — some people say “unfortunately,” but I say “fortunately” — was actually not familiar with the book before I got the audition for this show. A lot of people I know who had real relationships with the book would tell me things like, “If you mess this up, I’m gonna kill you.” [laughs] So I’m glad I didn’t have that added pressure on myself, that I was really able to come into it fresh.
And especially because Moira is such a beloved character, I was really just able to see who she was in the script, see who she was in the book, and go from there — and not have the thoughts and feelings I [would’ve had] if I read it in college while I was figuring out my sexuality and all that stuff.
I first got approached with the pilot script. [Bruce Miller]’s adaptation of the book in the pilot is, number one, so true to the book, which I feel like is something that should be heralded, and something that I applaud him for. Margaret Atwood also, I think, really applauds him for it — and that’s a stamp of approval.
But just reading the story and seeing the story of these women — it was fascinating seeing the different castes of women pitted against each other. That has always been a problem, of women thinking they need to compete with each other rather than realizing the collective strength we can have. That really interested me. And just on a personal level, Moira just seemed like such a badass.
Caroline Framke
What does resistance look like, and mean, for Moira?
Samira Wiley
Just being able to stand up and be who she is, where she’s able to walk through the streets living the life that she is and not have to look over her shoulder. But also, she is someone who wants to be on the front lines of any protest. She wants to be the one who is picketing, she wants to be the one who is yelling and screaming at people. Because she is that person who’s going to say stuff when nobody else is. Her role is very active, as well as passive. She just wants to walk down the street and live her life, but she’s also going to yell at you if you cross her line.
Caroline Framke
One interesting aspect of the new TV series is that there are smaller parts of the book that are getting to be a bigger part of the show, like the fact that Ofglen (played by Gilmore Girls’ Alexis Bledel) and Moira are gay and are called “gender traitors” because of that. In the book, that detail is kind of more mentioned in passing.
Samira Wiley
Yeah. I think that everything in the series that has been ramped up or heightened from the book is like a direct response to the world that we’re living in today. Even the choice to have Offred’s husband and the character of Moira be African-American, it’s just a real reflection of the world we’re living in. I think in the time that Margaret was writing 35 years ago, people didn’t feel as comfortable [talking about LGBTQ issues]. People are [now] living their lives openly and honestly and in front of people without shame. And it has to be reflected, I think, in the show, that that’s the life we’re coming from. You know, Ofglen talks in the pilot about her wife, and they had a son ... we see a picture of a family, an intact family that was ripped apart.
Caroline Framke
Right. It makes it feel very “of today.” Though I think it’s interesting that people keep saying the story is incredibly relevant now; it is, but the thing about the book is that it’s always relevant. Even when it was published, people were like, “Oh, it’s scary how relevant this is!”
Samira Wiley
Exactly, I keep saying that. I think you can sort of pick out any time in between [the book being published] and today, and even before then. The rights of women have always — since the beginning of time, men in general have been threatened by the power of women, and have always tried to find a way to regulate, control, or figure us out in some way.
Caroline Framke
When the show premiered at Tribeca, some things came out of the panel that took many people by surprise, like some cast members saying The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t necessarily a feminist story but a human story. So I was wondering —
Samira Wiley
What I think? [laughs] I mean, I just think it’s a no-brainer. Of course this show is a feminist work. I don’t know if the conference got misconstrued or anything, but I think what some of my castmates were trying to say was that for people who consider themselves feminists, and for people who don’t consider themselves feminists, that there are things in this [show] that everyone can get.
But I don’t want to be afraid of the word feminist. I don’t want to act like it’s not [feminist]; it’s definitely a feminist work. But I also think that people who are afraid of that word can gain something as well.
The first three episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale premiere April 26 on Hulu.