Though we will never again see Samira Wiley’s face at Litchfield Penitentiary on Orange Is the New Black, you can catch the 30-year old actress on Hulu’s highly anticipated new series, The Handmaid’s Tale.
The Handmaid’s Tale is set to take the streaming service by storm on Wednesday, April 26, 2017. Based on the critically acclaimed 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale takes a look at America if it were utterly taken over by a misogynist religious coup. Set in the near future in the midst of an on-going Civil War, the Sons of Jacob do not allow women to work, control money, or even read.
As a result of widespread infertility, fertile women called Handmaids have been rounded up and thrust into the homes of the elites where they are forced into ritualized sex with the men to become pregnant and bear children for those men and their wives. Mad Men’s Elizabeth Moss plays Offred, the main character who is one of the Handmaids.
Offred has been assigned to the elite Commander and his wife, and she must obey in fear of execution. However, she also remembers a time before, when she was married with a daughter and had her own life. She also remembers her best friend Moira (Samira Wiley) who she still crosses paths with who is in the same position. Moira however, is tenacious and rebellious, determined to fight back against her oppressors. From Offred’s perspective, Moira seems unbreakable.
Samira Wiley chatted with the New York Daily News about her new role saying, “It’s a scary book. And for me especially, being a lot of different minorities — a black, gay woman — the book didn’t necessarily comfort me. And the scariest things are not so overtly scary, but the simple things: How everyone has to greet each other every day with ‘blessed morning,’ and the Handmaids aren’t really allowed to look at each other. If we just stray from the path for two seconds … you could see these things happening.”
The first three episodes of the 10-episode season of The Handmaid’s Tale will begin streaming on Hulu next week. Will you be watching?
