‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ star Yvonne Strahovski on that Serena and June scene: ‘The biggest thing is that question of forgiveness’
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.
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.
“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.
“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.”
