Latest news with #Strahovski
Sydney Morning Herald
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘It's very emotional': Yvonne Strahovski farewells The Handmaid's Tale
While shooting the seventh episode of the final season of The Handmaid's Tale, Yvonne Strahovski was ready to shed her character, Serena Joy. 'I have thought about it a lot, and I'm very excited to let her go, but it's very emotional,' Strahovski says on set, just before Christmas. 'She is very intensely depressing. And there's just so much weight on this character. There's a feeling that I have for each character, and this one's just very tight and bitter and sort of held together. And as much as I don't take anything home, or I don't carry around with me, I think I do still on some level. And whenever you finish something, there is just this invisible thing that comes off your shoulders.' Three months later, after shooting wrapped, Strahovski talks to TV writer Jacqueline Cutler about what the role meant to her. Warning: This story contains spoilers for the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. Now that it has ended, do you feel the same way? When I saw you, I was thinking I was going to feel like throwing a party, and then I was done with her. Serena is a lot. She's a handful. It's just a lot of bitterness. It's a lot of grief she carries. It's a lot of resentment. It's a lot of negativity in your cortisol levels. I really thought I'm going to be free, and it was the total opposite. I was devastated. How was this season different from the first five? Just knowing that it was coming to an end, and it was all the last this and the last that. Then having to deal with the [Los Angeles] fires at the same time, it was really strange. The amount of grief ending a show is huge, especially this show and this character. She feels like a friend. Even though she's awful, she's a friend. And then grieving, saying goodbye to the city. I was not in and out. Most of the actors are in and out; you fly in and out for your days. You go back home. My family, we all moved. We made a life there in Toronto. We built a community when the kid was in school. It's a whole thing packing up 10 years of your life in the city, so there was that. I think for this season, as a character, it was just extraordinary. I feel like it's my favourite season because it really is the most we've ever seen her be the most real – not putting on this sort of face of I'm playing the role of the wife. What scenes haunt you? Definitely any ceremony, especially the one when June was pregnant, and we forced her into the rape. Serena ended up doing the right thing, passing the baby over. She still had her own emotions about it. It was devastating for her, for all the complicated reasons, even though she had been doing a horrible thing, obviously, by having a handmaid in the first place and being part of this whole system. The chopping off the finger when she tried to stand up for women speaking, and she was punished for that when Commander Waterford beat her in his office. Any moments from the farewell season linger? From this season, the first thing that came to my mind was after I get married to Josh Charles' character. We get married and it's truly a love connection. It's amazing. This is a moment where we see Serena having probably the most joyful moment out of the whole show. At her wedding, she's the queen bee, and she's loving every minute. And they come home to the new home, where she thinks she's doing a wonderful job of reforming Gilead so that there are no handmaids, and things are better. Loading They walk into the house, and he says, 'We got a gift from a commander'. And I turned around and there's a handmaid kneeling in the office. I hadn't felt that feeling since those previous episodes, and it was so real to me, to see, to be in a commander's house as a wife, and see the handmaid kneeling again in the office. Serena has not been in that environment for a while. She's been in detention. She's been in all kinds of places, but that was so enraging to me personally. And, of course, there's a big blowout fight that happens between Serena and her new husband. It's a great scene, but that was very, very haunting. How did this role change your career? It was the role that got me recognised in terms of the awards circuit, which was really lovely. It's definitely been a huge moment for me to be Serena on this critically acclaimed show. Loading My first show ever was Chuck. It was an action dramedy, lighthearted. As every actor will probably tell you, you get boxed into what people see you do first off, and then it's hard to change gears and steer your career a certain way. And it really is a combination of a lot of hard work and being brave to say no to the jobs that are coming to you that are the same as the other one and holding out a little bit and steering it. And having a great team behind you, too, to help you find the next opportunity. Then, when you get that foot in the door, you grab it with everything you've got, and hopefully, it goes your way. So, this role for me is that. It definitely switched gears for me, for my career, and I'm forever grateful. I don't know that words can describe how much I appreciate everything that I've gotten to do through this role, the scenes and the nuances. There are TV shows that you can land on for many years, and you'll die a creative death. I never once died a creative death on this show.
Elle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Elle
'The Handmaid's Tale': Yvonne Strahovski Understands You Want Serena Joy To Die - But She Doesn't
For nearly a decade, Yvonne Strahovski has portrayed the complex, morally grey Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale. And much like the entire fanbase, Strahovski herself has a complicated relationship with her character As the show's audience knows all too well, Serena has evolved from a high-strung advocate for Gilead to a deeply conflicted and broken woman who has suffered at the hands of the misogynistic and oppressive system that she has massively contributed towards. Yet, in between the Australian actor's hectic schedule, she sits down with ELLE UK and admits that she had no issue with the idea of her character Serena meeting an early end - and that it could've happened as early as the start of the final series. FIND OUT MORE AT ELLE COLLECTIVE 'There were definitely discussions about Serena being dealt a different ending,' Strahovski says. 'There was talk about her getting killed off at the start of season six.'In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, The Handmaid's Tale creator Bruce Miller revealed his original vision for the character. 'I wanted to kill her,' he confessed. 'Because I think she was such a horrible person and being dead on the side of the road completely anonymously [after she was pushed from the train during the first episode of the season finale] would have been a fitting end. I had to be convinced not to throw her off that train, along with the kid.' However, for Strahvoski, the idea of Serena dying in such a way, lost and nameless, felt unworthy of the character she'd spent years inhabiting. From an actor's perspective, she appreciated Serena being kept alive, however, the viewer inside of her could have easily lived with a more dramatic exit. 'Naturally, I am tied to her as a character. She's so multi-layered, and she's one of those characters that is the epitome of the grey area, due to how nuanced she is,' she explains. 'I think I would have been okay with her going out in some kind of tragic blaze of glory kind of way. It would have been fitting, and even satisfying for the inner audience member within me.' Yet, Strahovski's feelings on this aren't entirely black and white, just like the nature of the character that she plays. 'I don't think I would have been as okay with her just dropping dead, anonymously, in a ditch off the train,' she admits. 'That would have felt pretty anti-climactic after all that's happened with her over the seasons.' While Strahovski could envision a more action-filled exit for her contentious character, the decision to keep her character alive does, in many ways, offers Serena another possibility of redemption - a question that Strahvoski grapples with. Does Serena deserve that? 'I'm not sure that she does,' the actor answers. 'Deep down, Serena believes she's good and does good, even though she doesn't, she's a bit of a narcissist.' As the series draws closer to its finale for UK audiences, Strahvoski debates whether Serena's actions can ever be truly forgiven. 'It's such a two-sided experience, this forgiveness thing... I'm not sure she deserves it.' In more ways than one, Strahovski's relationship with Serena can, at times, mirror the audiences own feelings of frustration and tension towards such a conflicting character. Whether Serena does die a tragic death or is offered redemption from the other characters, one thing is certain - not even a woman in Serena's position is free of the horrors of Gilead. ELLE Collective is a new community of fashion, beauty and culture lovers. For access to exclusive content, events, inspiring advice from our Editors and industry experts, as well the opportunity to meet designers, thought-leaders and stylists, become a member today HERE.
Sydney Morning Herald
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘I was devastated': Yvonne Strahovski farewells The Handmaid's Tale
While shooting the seventh episode of the final season of The Handmaid's Tale, Yvonne Strahovski was ready to shed her character, Serena Joy. 'I have thought about it a lot, and I'm very excited to let her go, but it's very emotional,' Strahovski says on set, just before Christmas. 'She is very intensely depressing. And there's just so much weight on this character. There's a feeling that I have for each character, and this one's just very tight and bitter and sort of held together. And as much as I don't take anything home, or I don't carry around with me, I think I do still on some level. And whenever you finish something, there is just this invisible thing that comes off your shoulders.' Three months later, after shooting wrapped, Strahovski talks to TV writer Jacqueline Cutler about what the role meant to her. Warning: This story contains spoilers for the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. Now that it has ended, do you feel the same way? When I saw you, I was thinking I was going to feel like throwing a party and then I was done with her. Serena is a lot. She's a handful. It's just a lot of bitterness. It's a lot of grief she carries. It's a lot of resentment. It's a lot of negativity in your cortisol levels. I really thought I'm going to be free, and it was the total opposite. I was devastated. How was this season different from the first five? Just knowing that it was coming to an end, and it was all the last this and the last that. Then having to deal with the [Los Angeles] fires at the same time, it was really strange. The amount of grief ending a show is huge, especially this show and this character. She feels like a friend. Even though she's awful, she's a friend. And then grieving, saying goodbye to the city. I was not in and out. Most of the actors are in and out; you fly in and out for your days. You go back home. My family, we all moved. We made a life there in Toronto. We built a community when the kid was in school. It's a whole thing packing up 10 years of your life in the city, so there was that. I think for this season, as a character, it was just extraordinary. I feel like it's my favourite season because it really is the most we've ever seen her be the most real – not putting on this sort of face of I'm playing the role of the wife. What scenes haunt you? Definitely any ceremony, especially the one when June was pregnant, and we forced her into the rape. Serena ended up doing the right thing, passing the baby over. She still had her own emotions about it. It was devastating for her, for all the complicated reasons, even though she had been doing a horrible thing, obviously, by having a handmaid in the first place and being part of this whole system. The chopping off the finger when she tried to stand up for women speaking, and she was punished for that when Commander Waterford beat her in his office. Any moments from the farewell season linger? From this season, the first thing that came to my mind was after I get married to Josh Charles's character. We get married and it's truly a love connection. It's amazing. This is a moment where we see Serena having probably the most joyful moment out of the whole show. At her wedding, she's the queen bee, and she's loving every minute. And they come home to the new home, where she thinks she's doing a wonderful job of reforming Gilead so that there are no handmaids, and things are better. Loading They walk into the house, and he says, 'We got a gift from a commander.' And I turned around and there's a handmaid kneeling in the office. I hadn't felt that feeling since those previous episodes, and it was so real to me, to see, to be in a commander's house as a wife, and see the handmaid kneeling again in the office. Serena has not been in that environment for a while. She's been in detention. She's been in all kinds of places but that was so enraging to me personally. And, of course, there's a big blowout fight that happens between Serena and her new husband. It's a great scene, but that was very, very haunting. How did this role change your career? It was the role that got me recognised in terms of the awards circuit, which was really lovely. It's definitely been a huge moment for me to be Serena on this critically acclaimed show. Loading My first show ever was Chuck. It was an action dramedy, lighthearted. As every actor will probably tell you, you get boxed into what people see you do first off, and then it's hard to change gears and steer your career a certain way. And it really is a combination of a lot of hard work and being brave to say no to the jobs that are coming to you that are the same as the other one and holding out a little bit and steering it. And having a great team behind you, too, to help you find the next opportunity. Then, when you get that foot in the door, you grab it with everything you've got, and hopefully, it goes your way. So, this role for me is that. It definitely switched gears for me, for my career, and I'm forever grateful. I don't know that words can describe how much I appreciate everything that I've gotten to do through this role, the scenes and the nuances. There are TV shows that you can land on for many years, and you'll die a creative death. I never once died a creative death on this show.
The Age
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘I was devastated': Yvonne Strahovski farewells The Handmaid's Tale
While shooting the seventh episode of the final season of The Handmaid's Tale, Yvonne Strahovski was ready to shed her character, Serena Joy. 'I have thought about it a lot, and I'm very excited to let her go, but it's very emotional,' Strahovski says on set, just before Christmas. 'She is very intensely depressing. And there's just so much weight on this character. There's a feeling that I have for each character, and this one's just very tight and bitter and sort of held together. And as much as I don't take anything home, or I don't carry around with me, I think I do still on some level. And whenever you finish something, there is just this invisible thing that comes off your shoulders.' Three months later, after shooting wrapped, Strahovski talks to TV writer Jacqueline Cutler about what the role meant to her. Warning: This story contains spoilers for the final season of The Handmaid's Tale. Now that it has ended, do you feel the same way? When I saw you, I was thinking I was going to feel like throwing a party and then I was done with her. Serena is a lot. She's a handful. It's just a lot of bitterness. It's a lot of grief she carries. It's a lot of resentment. It's a lot of negativity in your cortisol levels. I really thought I'm going to be free, and it was the total opposite. I was devastated. How was this season different from the first five? Just knowing that it was coming to an end, and it was all the last this and the last that. Then having to deal with the [Los Angeles] fires at the same time, it was really strange. The amount of grief ending a show is huge, especially this show and this character. She feels like a friend. Even though she's awful, she's a friend. And then grieving, saying goodbye to the city. I was not in and out. Most of the actors are in and out; you fly in and out for your days. You go back home. My family, we all moved. We made a life there in Toronto. We built a community when the kid was in school. It's a whole thing packing up 10 years of your life in the city, so there was that. I think for this season, as a character, it was just extraordinary. I feel like it's my favourite season because it really is the most we've ever seen her be the most real – not putting on this sort of face of I'm playing the role of the wife. What scenes haunt you? Definitely any ceremony, especially the one when June was pregnant, and we forced her into the rape. Serena ended up doing the right thing, passing the baby over. She still had her own emotions about it. It was devastating for her, for all the complicated reasons, even though she had been doing a horrible thing, obviously, by having a handmaid in the first place and being part of this whole system. The chopping off the finger when she tried to stand up for women speaking, and she was punished for that when Commander Waterford beat her in his office. Any moments from the farewell season linger? From this season, the first thing that came to my mind was after I get married to Josh Charles's character. We get married and it's truly a love connection. It's amazing. This is a moment where we see Serena having probably the most joyful moment out of the whole show. At her wedding, she's the queen bee, and she's loving every minute. And they come home to the new home, where she thinks she's doing a wonderful job of reforming Gilead so that there are no handmaids, and things are better. Loading They walk into the house, and he says, 'We got a gift from a commander.' And I turned around and there's a handmaid kneeling in the office. I hadn't felt that feeling since those previous episodes, and it was so real to me, to see, to be in a commander's house as a wife, and see the handmaid kneeling again in the office. Serena has not been in that environment for a while. She's been in detention. She's been in all kinds of places but that was so enraging to me personally. And, of course, there's a big blowout fight that happens between Serena and her new husband. It's a great scene, but that was very, very haunting. How did this role change your career? It was the role that got me recognised in terms of the awards circuit, which was really lovely. It's definitely been a huge moment for me to be Serena on this critically acclaimed show. Loading My first show ever was Chuck. It was an action dramedy, lighthearted. As every actor will probably tell you, you get boxed into what people see you do first off, and then it's hard to change gears and steer your career a certain way. And it really is a combination of a lot of hard work and being brave to say no to the jobs that are coming to you that are the same as the other one and holding out a little bit and steering it. And having a great team behind you, too, to help you find the next opportunity. Then, when you get that foot in the door, you grab it with everything you've got, and hopefully, it goes your way. So, this role for me is that. It definitely switched gears for me, for my career, and I'm forever grateful. I don't know that words can describe how much I appreciate everything that I've gotten to do through this role, the scenes and the nuances. There are TV shows that you can land on for many years, and you'll die a creative death. I never once died a creative death on this show.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Handmaid's Tale' star Yvonne Strahovski on that Serena and June scene: ‘The biggest thing is that question of forgiveness'
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways WARNING: The following story contains spoilers for the first six episodes of The Handmaid's Tale's sixth and final season, streaming now on Hulu. As the actress who embodies Serena on The Handmaid's Tale, Yvonne Strahovski has never shied away from the fact that she is often conflicted about how she feels about her character. On the one hand, Strahovski has had to get herself to a place where she understands (and even justifies) Serena's actions, but on the other, she feels "gross and dirty" admitting that because she also understands that Serena is "delusional." Any inner conflict Strahovski may feel about Serena, though, has undoubtedly helped her layer her performance in the final season of the Hulu hit, which sees Serena experiencing her own conflict. More from GoldDerby Almost attacked and then cast out of a train leaving Canada, Serena was on her own with her son at the start of the sixth and final season. They ended up finding refuge with a religious community where she was recognized, but her secret was kept. But as much as her faith was at the center of so many of her earlier decisions, so too was a hunger for power, and on the commune, that anonymity kept her down in a different, but still emotionally oppressive, way than her life as a wife in Gilead. So when Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford) offered her a chance to lead again, she took it and went to New Bethlehem, where she hoped to find a way to change the way of life once more, but still ended up accepting Commander Wharton's (Josh Charles) marriage proposal. "Truthfully, the faith part of it has always been the most boring part [of her character]," Strahovski tells Gold Derby. "And so, it's not ever something that I have personally been driven to operate through and from as her. ... This season was probably the season where I got to let go of that the most because I think Serena lets go of it the most — because she is literally just completely option-less and has to just forge on with this opening position in front of her of being the female leader of New Bethlehem. ... It really has become about the politics for her, more so than ever." That is not to say that she doesn't have "flare-ups," as Strahovski puts it, of her faith. After seeing flashbacks to her time with her father early on in the final season, it became clear that her father had an expectation of her to stay tied to faith. Because she had such a good relationship with him, Strahovski says it "is a point of guilt" to question or let go of her faith completely, and she also knows the value of using faith to keep others following her, even as her feelings about it changed. SEE The Handmaid's Tale star Samira Wiley on Moira 'ending her trauma in Gilead' "Her own relationship to her faith, I think, is complicated and has been challenged and probably isn't where it was to begin with at all," Strahovski says. Undoubtedly her relationship with June (Elisabeth Moss) is a big part of why. Although June was once Serena's handmaid, their relationship grew so complex over the years that June most recently saved Serena from the angry mob on the train. And in turn, when June ended up in New Bethlehem needing shelter in the sixth episode, "Surprise," Serena took her in. It is an act Strahovski considers "self-serving" of Serena, but in its own way does exemplify both the conflict and growth of Serena, as well. "This was a season where Serena became the most raw, dropped the act a little bit. … There was this mask that she wore; she was like a character. I think as the seasons go by, she's dropped it a bit, here and there, but this is the biggest drop, and within that de-masking and taking away of the character, I think she is having a greater ability and capacity to connect with herself and the reality of her own choices and the consequences that her choices have had," Strahovski says. Serena "still can't read a room," Strahovski admits, as is evidenced when Serena starts talking to June about her impending wedding like the two are friends, but the two have an open and honest discussion about that, which doesn't include either woman trying to manipulate the other. Strahovski shares that she made a conscious decision when working on that scene (which she also calls one of her favorite scenes) to be raw and to allow Serena to "open up to June, be more responsive to her." In turn, this means some of the things June says really "hit hard and hit a nerve because [they're] true, and I think Serena knows it to be true." "She just wants to be accepted. She wants to be forgiven. And I think that the biggest thing in that scene is that question of forgiveness and how important that is for Serena," Strahovski continues. "This whole time that we've seen Serena from the beginning of the show, her overriding desire has been to have a baby, and it seems like since she had the baby, her overriding desire has been to have June forgive her and accept her, so she can move on and be validated in knowing that she is and was a good person all along. Even though she made terrible choices, I think as a human being, she needs and wants this, even if it's delusional." June still can't forgive Serena, but by the end of the episode, there are even more emotionally complicated issues at hand, as Wharton tells Serena that Nick (Max Minghella) told him Jezebel's was going to be attacked to take out Commanders, so Wharton got there first, killing the women who worked there instead. Credit: Disney/Steve Wilkie - Credit: Disney/Steve Wilkie Disney/Steve Wilkie "This is one of those moments for [Serena] where her original belief system sort of kicks back into place," Strahovski says. "She leans towards agreeing with Wharton's choice and being in support of it because she didn't like Jezebel's anyway ... it personally triggers her to have Jezebel's in existence because of the initial betrayal way back in the day of Fred. "So, this is where that complexity comes in. I think, personally, she's for it closing — getting it trashed, bombed, whatever. And whatever religious beliefs are left over, I think, also kick in, and that is also in support of it. Where it becomes messy for her and where it's like this annoying fly in the room that she wishes would go away, is June informing her that, in fact, it's not right. She's human enough to understand that June is right," Strahovski continues. Any conflicting feelings Serena may have will not stop her from marrying Wharton, though, and Strahovski promises that event is "guaranteed to be quite pivotal and explosive — metaphorically explosive." "The big, million-dollar Serena question is, 'What side will she end up on?' Not that it's black and white like that … it can't ever be that simple. "I think what this show does so beautifully is intertwine all these characters and their emotions and their storylines together. It's just really amazing how they've threaded everything together that leads us to the end of the show in such a meaningful way, and it's so much pressure to do that." The Handmaid's Tale streams new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu. Best of GoldDerby Sign up for Gold Derby's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article.
