With The Handmaid’s Tale wrapping up after six seasons, fans are now looking forward to sequel series The Testaments. It will have a new cast aside from Ann Dowd’s returning Aunt Lydia, but the creative forces behind both shows teased earlier this week that some other familiar faces could return. One that will not, however: Samira Wiley’s Moira. This comes from the actress herself, who admitted in a new interview that she’s quite ready to move on.
“I wish I could tease and say ‘maybe,’ but that’s going to be a no for me [to appear in The Testaments],” Wiley told the Hollywood Reporter. “Moira’s fight is elsewhere. Who knows? Moira maybe should be there, but I don’t have it in me anymore.”
Wiley is glad for the experience of playing Moira—”It really has been a privilege to be able to tell a story from the beginning and the middle to the end”—and she appreciated how season six finally saw Moira move toward a life not completely devoted to helping June (Elisabeth Moss). But she’s glad to put the heavier aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale in the past, especially considering the continuing state of the world.
During the show’s first season, Wiley recalled, “There was this palpable sense of responsibility that we all now had because of what was happening in the world… I’ll never get over seeing these women and people silently protesting by wearing the costumes that we wore.”
However, she added, that responsibility became almost too much as the years have gone on. “It’s something I actually am really happy to be done with. It’s remarkable. This show is something that is going to stay with me forever—that this was a part of my career, the mirroring of the life and the art. But I’m done with it. It’s a bit too much. I don’t need for the show that I’m on to be mirroring what is happening nationally and therefore globally. To be honest, I don’t want to be having those conversations. I want to be talking about whatever show I’m doing, but the weight of what The Handmaid’s Tale has been and the conversations I have had to have, you don’t get a break like other people do from what’s happening out there.”
It’s also been tough, Wiley said, because “the way that I take on my characters is fully in a way that I can’t always let go of them. It’s almost like I’m experiencing some of their emotions when talking about what’s happening in the world.”
The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1-6 is now streaming on Hulu; there’s no premiere date set yet for The Testaments.
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