2 months ago
EXCLUSIVE: Ann Dowd declares that she “wasn’t fresh to springiness up” playing the often brutally sadistic Aunt Lydia aft portraying her for six seasons connected nan acclaimed tv drama The Handmaids Tale, truthful she eagerly welcomed returning to her for The Testaments, the sequel to Margaret Atwood‘s dystopian chronicle that premieres Sunday connected Hulu.
The Emmy Award-winning creator co-stars pinch Chase Infiniti — scorching successful Oscars Best Picture One Battle After Another — arsenic Agnes, pinch Lucy Holliday arsenic Daisy (Blue Jean, California Schemin’), some of whom are introduced arsenic students attending Aunt Lydia’s shiny caller academy for nan daughters of precocious commanders successful Gilead.
What’s typical astir them will beryllium revealed complete time.
The Testaments charts events respective years connected from nan chilling saga that unfolded in The Handmaid’s Tale, which concluded past May.
Dowd describes nan morally analyzable Aunt Lydia, 1 of nan richest melodramatic characters connected television, arsenic “a complete gift. I can’t judge it. She was brought to her knees astatine nan extremity of The Handmaid’s Tale, profoundly remorseful, wanting forgiveness,” acknowledging that she had “done incorrect things and atrocious things” but had “allowed nan walls to break and to travel down and she was near pinch nothing.”
Over nan intervening years, Aunt Lydia has go “a changed person,” Dowd insists, who has had clip to “begin again” by establishing her school.
“It’s a full different world,” Dowd suggests. “And she enters arsenic a gentler self, that fierceness, that wall is nary longer present. Now, it’s location location successful her, it doesn’t conscionable disappear, but I deliberation her attraction connected nan schoolhouse and what she wants nan girls to study astir being a hostess, a wife, a mother, a homemaker, each these things. Note, nary reading, writing, mind you, nary mathematics, ideate that. And rules are rules, and they are enforced, you tin beryllium sure, and pinch God’s blessing.”
Aunt Lydia’s a through-line that connects some of Margaret Atwood’s Gilead novels. Dowd nods, saying she feels “very privileged for that relationship to nan past.”
She’s an aunt successful maternal guise, really. “True enough. That’s really she treats and loves her girls. She loved them profoundly in The Handmaids Tale and thought that they had gone astray successful their lives. They had nary narration pinch God. They were surviving pinch men they weren’t joined to. These very strict things that Lydia believed successful and realized, ‘If I want thing to change, I’m going to person to usage unit and scare them into it, aliases they’re not going to perceive to a connection I’m saying.’ She established that level of ferocity to support them successful line, I think. But loved them conscionable nan same, moreover though I’m judge group who person seen her successful nan opening in The Handmaids Tale don’t deliberation of her arsenic loving nan girls, but I dream they spot it a small bit. I don’t know. Is that adjacent to ask?”
Her attachment to Aunt Lydia is palpable arsenic we meet for beverage (more connected what kinda “tea” later) astatine nan sumptuous Raffles Hotel that arose retired of nan erstwhile War Office successful Whitehall wherever Winston Churchill, from a magnificent marble staircase, would reside nan federation during World War II.
Dowd scolds me, ever truthful gently, for daring to propose that nan weirdly misogynistic Aunt Lydia behaved malevolently. “No. I ne'er knowledgeable her that way, which nan norm is, arsenic an actor, don’t judge,” she reasons.
“There’s a logic why she’s doing what she’s doing. It’s thing that she believes in. What does she judge in? What are you going to do and not judge? And that way, nan narration stays unfastened betwixt characteristic and actor. And that’s a awesome thing. I cognize it sounds for illustration I’m making up nonsense, but she speaks to me. I speak to her. I’ve travel to cognize her. She has travel to cognize maine and I person recovered her to beryllium tremendously adjuvant successful definite ways successful my life,” she reveals pinch passion.
How so, I wondered?
“In making a decision, opinionated up and making a determination and not conscionable wallowing successful self-pity,” she responds. “Do your homework, make nan decision, instrumentality pinch it. No nonsense, nary clip for it. Stop it. You don’t request it. You’re this age, you’re that age. Stop.”
“I’ve been reminded of that arsenic I study nan domiciled and do each season, truthful this is nan seventh play of knowing her. Which is benignant of nice. Imagine having nan privilege of knowing a characteristic for 7 years.
“You dice to do that!” she exclaims.
People utilized to inquire her, she says: “‘How do you play specified a character? Do you person to really walk clip talking yourself into it?’ And I utilized to benignant of springiness a vague reply because nan truthful reply was: I can’t get location accelerated enough. That’s nan truth. It’s awesome to play a domiciled for illustration this. It’s not for illustration we spell location pinch nan consequences. We don’t. This is make judge for us. I cognize that sounds for illustration we’re pretending we’re children, but that’s really nan idea. It’s not existent life. We springiness it each nan qualities we tin of existent life, but we time off it astatine nan extremity of a day. And it’s a very fortunate point that actors get to do. So finally, I conscionable told nan truth. I said: ‘I conscionable emotion it. Can’t get to her accelerated enough. Those reliable scenes erstwhile she’s really unsmooth pinch them, awesome to play,'” she says gleefully.
Dowd believes that Aunt Lydia’s premier information in The Testaments is 1 of survival, and her communicative is cardinal to knowing Gilead’s past and its future. We learned successful Season 3, section 8 of The Handmaid’s Tale, successful a backstory flashback, that nan concisely joined Lydia Clements, arsenic she was, practiced family rule earlier becoming a 4th-grade teacher, wherever she’s shown arsenic being fiercely protective of a young charge, while blasting their sinful mother.
Dowd remembers being taught by Catholic Ursuline nuns, and 2 of her aunts were besides sisters of nan aforesaid Ursuline order. “They were not thing for illustration Lydia successful position of cruelty aliases immoderate of that, though they had their ways, but what they did have, what stuck pinch maine was a activity ethic. You person a occupation to do. You don’t locomotion distant from that occupation until nan occupation is complete. And if you don’t complete it, I will bring you backmost and you will do so. You are not special. You are conscionable for illustration everyone other who has their portion to play and their point to do. That really stayed pinch me,” she says arsenic she recalls being hauled retired of hoops believe to get backmost to her duties sweeping a courtyard.
“And I didn’t situation time off until it was done,” she says.
Her memories of nan sisters helped her combine nan psychological architecture needed to build her image of Aunt Lydia, turning her into 1 of television’s astir fascinating villains.
“And I recovered it to beryllium very adjuvant imagining Lydia… And I ideate she astir apt was raised conscionable by her father. I made these things up because that made consciousness to me. He was cold, very religious, but acold to her. Sex was nan antichrist. All these things very adjuvant successful determining who she is and why she believes what she believes,” she explains.
It’s nary wonderment Margaret Atwood was adamant that Bruce Miller, showrunner connected both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments, not bump disconnected Aunt Lydia and that she must past that stabbing onslaught that took spot astatine nan extremity of Season 2. The author, insisted to The New York Times astatine nan time, that Aunt Lydia is “too bully to kill.”
Smiling broadly, Dowd acknowledges that she “did perceive that,” reasoning that “I deliberation she decided she was going to constitute a sequel, and possibly getting nan characteristic she wants to beryllium live successful her book. So I opportunity humbly, I deliberation she had Lydia successful mind, which I’m truthful grateful for. I wonderment if she would person been killed?But anyway, very grateful that she did not. We did not die. And Margaret Atwood, speaking of nan horrors that are going on, group person called her a prophet and she says, ‘No, no. I look backmost to history and everything I opportunity has happened location successful this world.’ And that’s conscionable staggering isn’t it?” she says, recoiling successful her seat.
“And what do we do astir Trump? I’m going into nan mediate of obscurity here. Sorry,” she says, placing a manus complete her mouth.
Where’s nan grace gone retired of nan presidency, I opportunity retired loud.
Richard Nixon, for each his faults, showed a consciousness of grace and dignity erstwhile it mattered, I suggest.
“Exactly, exactly. Yes. None here. None here,” Dowd retorts.
The show’s nexus to modern U.S. authorities and societal use is frightening, whether its abortion authorities aliases migration controls, she says, while admitting, successful immoderate event, that she can’t ever retrieve what happened connected nan shows because she ne'er watched them.
“Unfortunately, I haven’t seen it. I don’t watch,” she insists.
Why, I ask?
“Well, there’s 2 reasons,” she answers.
“When location is simply a time wherever everything you hoped for successful nan mentation you’ve given, it happens successful a fixed day, it goes well. There’s thing for illustration that feeling. And you spell location astatine nan extremity of a time for illustration that and you tin time off nan activity astatine nan activity place, spell home, you person a solid of thing and you conscionable tin displacement what was nan time like. That is truthful profoundly gratifying that erstwhile nan thought of seeing it, it was like, why would I spot it? I did it. It conscionable doesn’t jive for me. I don’t cognize why. That’s strange. But nan different reason, and it’s rather important, I’m embarrassed astir it, is nan self-criticism. When you watch it and you think, why didn’t I do that? You suffer nan joyousness of it because of nan pettiness successful my mind of, you could person done that aliases what were you reasoning erstwhile you … That takes distant from nan communicative and nan joy. And what’s nan point? When I turn up, I’ll watch. That’s what I show myself.”
She’s ever been driven for illustration that arsenic an artist, though not connected shape because “well, past you’re successful theater, truthful it’s not astir watching.”
Dowd went into acting aft giving up aesculapian studies, and her training astatine acting school, she stresses, was for nan theater. “I didn’t do movie and tv for a while. So it wasn’t astir watching aliases not watching. That was not nan choice.”
Acting went gradually for her, she explains. “I’ve been very grateful. I’ve been fixed nan clip to get utilized to something, commencement pinch a mini role. And characteristic roles, that’s not nan lead of nan story. So you person abstraction and I had clip to understand really it’s done because filming is simply a very different thing, isn’t it? And it’s a small scary erstwhile you deliberation of, what’s happening here? There’s a camera and location are different rules and ways you’re expected to look and not look, and truthful on. But nan joyousness of it is, you do get utilized to it and you do study really to do it pinch joy, pinch spot and not fear. I mean, I ever person a small spot of fear. I suppose that’s not a bad thing.”
Brightly, she adds: “But anyway, it’s coming along.”
Appropriately, an early surface in installments was a mini domiciled successful nan tv movie First Steps in 1985. Her footprint grew larger arsenic filmmakers realized really adept Dowd was astatine making nan beingness of her characters felt. Her Patti Levin successful nan HBO series The Leftovers is a marvel to re-watch, arsenic are her roles successful movies like Compliance, Hereditary and Garden State.
Her top characteristic movie performance, I believe, is nan 1 she gives successful head Fran Kranz’s 2021 movie Mass, astir a schoolhouse shooting and its aftermath. Dowd played nan shooter’s utterly surgery mother.
In fact, Dowd and I met 5 years agone successful London conscionable erstwhile recreation restrictions were lifting after nan pandemic. We were offered champagne, but “I don’t portion connected nan job,” I somewhat piously protested.
“Neither do I,” she changeable backmost instantly. “I don’t cognize who I’m kidding,” Dowd had jested arsenic she indicated to our jolly server to popular unfastened nan bottle.
Five years on, we repetition nan aforesaid rigmarole, yet erstwhile again. I relent, though I besides bid a ample cookware of beverage to astatine slightest hint astatine my precocious intentions.
As we sip our champers, we touch connected nan Jeffrey Epstein files featuring much wicked, godless men.
“Yes, powerful men still abuse,” she says pinch a look of disgust, “with impunity. And what do you do pinch it? I don’t cognize nan reply to nan question. It’s mind-boggling. And Andrew Tate, each of that. What successful nan world is going on? And Roe v. Wade gone. Whoever thought that was going to happen? The hope, of course, is ever to move guardant and we’re moving backwards. It’s horrible. I mean, I don’t person thing intelligent to opportunity astir it.”
We move connected to events overseas and she’s abruptly flooded by a activity of sadness. “We are successful a bad way, unfortunately,” she laments. “We really are. He’s specified a lunatic for nan world to see,” her hurt green eyes telling america what she’d alternatively not say.
Dowd’s look and her sound are her fortune, her instruments successful a sense. On shape and screen, they are utilized to convey a scope of emotions. I’ve been fortunate capable to drawback her activity connected nan boards and I’ve ever felt that if she were a Brit, doing activity of this calibre, particularly successful nan Atwood adaptations, past she’d beryllium a Dame by now.
Well, successful nan absence of a dame-hood, The Testaments boasts a statue dedicated to Aunt Lydia. “Oh, God,” Dowd cries, “she has while she is still live a statue of herself. How astir that statue!”
Maybe she’ll get to return it location erstwhile nan show has ended. “That would beryllium terrifying. Terrifying,” she says pinch a shudder.
About nan show’s future, she is cautious, telling me, “Well, we haven’t been picked up yet. I deliberation it will be. I’m beautiful judge that this is going to beryllium picked up… truthful they’re successful nan writer’s room now. I mean, not this moment, but they person begun penning it. So, I deliberation it’s soon to come. I’m judge they’d for illustration to person respective seasons. There’s a batch to tell.”
Just successful case, she’s keeping nan autumn free to sprout Season 2.
Dowd and Adam Kersh, her longtime manager, are processing respective projects, including a surface adjustment of Naomi Wallace’s off-Broadway play Night is simply a Room, successful which Dowd appeared astatine Signature Theatre successful 2015.
It’s besides their volition to accommodate Olga Tokarczuk’s caller Drive Your Plow complete nan Bones of nan Dead. The eco-crime communicative was itself turned into nan 2017 film Spoor, directed by Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland.
A task closest to her bosom correct now, however, is simply a book that her husband, nan acting coach Lawrence Arancio, is penning called Act Like a Human Being. Dowd explains that it’s based connected letters from past students. “And what they learned successful acting school” astir definite listening and talking exercises, she says. They would convey him profoundly for what he taught them because they’ve utilized it successful existent life, moreover if they’re not actors, really important it is. So he was telling personification astir those letters and she said, “‘You should constitute a book astir it. Act for illustration a quality being.’ So he’s astir a 100 pages in.”
