Yvonne Strahovski is opening up about what it’s like to play the creepy villain Serena Joy on “The Handmaid’s Tale”.
The 35-year-old Australian actress is on the April cover of Fashion, on newsstands March 12. In the feature interview she talks about her career path, the current #MeToo movement and filming the hit series based on the novel by Margaret Atwood.
“I think I have a pretty good handle on how to survive in this business, so much of it comes down to just being myself. It reminds me of the feminist movement that’s happening right now,” Strahovski says of the #MeToo movement. “It’s about being able to tell your stories and not having to be prim and proper. And it’s probably also because I’m getting older.”
The actress also says after playing a spy on the TV series “Chuck” it was a struggle not to be cast only in that kind of role.
“People take one look at you and they put you in a box, whatever your race, culture, look, height, size – all of it,” Strahovski explains. “I think my pigeonhole was also specific. When you’re running around with guns, playing a CIA agent, it can be hard to break out of that.”
Strahovski’s character Serena on “The Handmaid’s Tale” is very different from what she’s played before, but that’s part of the appeal.
“She’s so harsh, but at the same time I want to find the humanity in her,” the actress says. “She’s so unrelatable, but I try to make her relatable through what she’s going through emotionally, even though I feel like she resents her own emotions.”
“I had to strip away all the judgments people place on Serena, because she is basically a nasty, awful b****, I thought about how she was betrayed by her husband. I also thought about how she had had a voice in constructing this society and how her intentions came from a pure place,” Strahovski adds. “It’s hard because my heart breaks often on the show for what is happening to someone else.”
