‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 2: Samira Wiley Tells Us Why Moira’s Newfound Freedom Isn’t All Sweet (Video)

There is “also the feeling of deep loneliness,” actress tells TheWrap about escaping Gilead

(Spoiler alert: Please do not read ahead unless you’ve seen all of “The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 1.)

Getting from Canada to Gilead is no easy task. And there are no two people who can back up that claim better than Moira (Samira Wiley) and Luke (O-T Fagbenle) — who were reunited in the Great White North at the end of Season 1 of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

When TheWrap sat down to chat with Wiley ahead of the second season’s premiere, we first congratulated her on escaping the show’s authoritarian regime (which, weirdly, no one had yet!) and then asked her what it’s really going to feel like for Moira to finally be safe from Gilead’s grasp.

“We think so much about making it out of a place like that,” Wiley said. “We can imagine what that is, that feeling of freedom. And it’s this huge celebratory moment and it is all of those things. But it is also a little sad because you’re not with your family anymore. And there is a lot of mixed feelings that are going on while being in Canada. There is the feeling of freedom, but then also the feeling of deep loneliness.”

Moira isn’t alone. She has Luke, her best friend June’s (Elisabeth Moss) husband, who has been living in comfort in Canada for a few years now. However, pretty much the only thing these two have ever had in common is June. And she’s still stuck in Gilead.

“The characters Moira and Luke have always had a love-hate relationship,” Wiley said. “They’re kind of like brother and sister and that only gets highlighted more with them living together in a house. Because of their love for June, and June’s absence, their love has to be sort of directed toward each other, so we see them sort of become even closer. Not in that kind of way though!”

“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 2 will be shaped by Offred/June’s (Elisabeth Moss) pregnancy and her ongoing fight to free her future child from the dystopian horrors of Gilead. In the sophomore installment, Offred and others will fight against — or succumb to — the dark truth that “Gilead is within you.”

Watch Wiley’s interview with TheWrap above.

Season 2 of “The Handmaid’s Tale” will premiere with two new episodes on Wednesday, with subsequent episodes released every Wednesday, on Hulu.

Comments