The newest episode of The Testaments redefines how many viewers perceive Ann Dowd’s menacing character, Aunt Lydia.
“I was stunned by it, and deeply grateful because boy did it answer some questions,” Dowd, 70, told Obsessed: The Podcast of her first reaction to reading the script for The Handmaid’s Tale sequel’s sixth episode, “Stadium,” streaming now on Hulu.
After six seasons on The Handmaid’s Tale, Aunt Lydia became one of the show’s most feared characters for her stern discipline of the dystopian world’s young women. In The Testaments, fans finally get a glimpse of how the school headmistress became so powerful through a flashback to the regime’s early founding days.
“She starts just thinking, not only, ‘How am I going to survive?’ but ‘I don’t want to be Aunt Number Five. I want to be Aunt Number One,’” the Emmy-winning actress said of her character’s backstory.
During one crucial scene, Aunt Lydia is asked to pledge her loyalty to the country’s new Republic by shooting her former colleague.
“What would I do? I honestly–I don’t have the answer. I would like to think I wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger. No way,“ Dowd said. ”But you learn something about the character, how she becomes Aunt Lydia."
“Just the fact that she wants to live, and she’s going to shoot. If she has to shoot her colleague, she’s going to do it. That’s just... wow. What a thing to learn about a character!” she continued.
After so many years portraying Aunt Lydia, it could become easy for the line to blur between actress and character, but Dowd said the line is clear to her.
“Some of the choices she made, I don’t believe I would have gone to those, to act in that way. It’s too intense. I’m more of a softie,” she said, adding, “I don’t have any desire to scare the bejesus out of anybody.”
Despite Aunt Lydia’s dark exterior, Dowd said it was easy to leave behind the character on set.
“The thing is, we don’t go home with the consequences,” Dowd said. “At the end of the day, when you’ve worked hard, and the scenes are connected, and you’ve got the work done, and you’ve made contact with the character, there’s nothing like it. It’s bliss.”
“And then you let go,” she concluded. “She’s so intense that at the end of the day, you feel the strength of her. And it’s a fantastic feeling.”
The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian predecessor to The Testaments that premiered just weeks after Trump’s 2017 inauguration, has been hailed as remarkably timely. Dowd said it was no accident.
“Everything that happens in The Handmaid’s Tale has happened somewhere in this world," Dowd said, something she learned from the book’s author, Margaret Atwood. “Wrap your head around that, if you can. It’s extraordinary.”
“I remember in the beginning when Trump was elected, it was just like, ‘How can this possibly happen?’” Dowd said, recalling her early conversations with the show’s star, Elisabeth Moss. “And I remember writing to Lizzie, and I said, ‘What are we going to do?’”
“And she wrote back, ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down,’” Dowd recalled, citing the Latin phrase of defiance used in the show.
The Testaments is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+. New episodes premiere each Wednesday.
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