If it wasn’t challenging enough to play an infertile wife, who has to appear on camera watching the ritualised rape of young women by her rich husband in order to bear children for her, imagine doing that while pregnant. The best actors in the world would struggle – Yvonne Strahovski included.
Photography by María Fiennes @lolaalvarezart, Hair by Justin German, Make-up by Susana Hong, Styling by Skye Kelton
The 36-year-old Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated actress, who plays the menacing Serena Joy in the extraordinary The Handmaid’s Tale series – barren wife of Fred and mistress of Handmaid Offred – discovered she was pregnant with her first child just over half way through the filming of season two. Even now, despite the fact that her son is now nine months old, the memory of it is still quite affecting. “I really just didn’t want my character, my job, or anything to do with The Handmaid’s Tale infiltrating this baby inside of me,” the Australian star tells GLAMOUR exclusively.
“So, I was always envisioning him, growing inside of me, separate in this safety bubble that nothing could touch,” she says. “No matter what kind of emotion I was portraying on camera, I just really tried to separate it. I mean, that’s really all I could do.”
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising, though, that a show with so much power over its audience should have such an effect on one of its own stars. The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the darkest, most gripping and genuinely society-altering shows of the past decade, pushing its actors into often unexplored territory and inspiring an unprecedented uprising of real-life activism among its devotees.
Based on the novel of the same name by the Booker Prize-winning and global bestselling author Margaret Atwood, the story is set (just like the novel), in a near-future society where a radical political group has overthrown the US government to create Gilead. In this new state, all women and minorities have been subjugated, and because environmental pollution has caused large-scale infertility, the fertile women left have been abducted and turned into Handmaids. They are then sent to the homes of rich commanders who ritually rape them once a month, in order for them to bear children for their wives.
The show is in turns desperately heartbreaking, brutal, rage-inducing and disturbing. But, also, utterly compelling and – set against the backdrop of #MeToo, Trump’s presidency and the ongoing battle for women’s rights globally (the number of US states imposing new and restrictive laws on abortion, and even in the UK, the near total ban on it in Northern Ireland) – uncomfortably prescient. It’s sometimes hard to believe that Atwood’s original novel was written in 1984. This September, 35 years on, she’s releasing a sequel, The Testaments, which is likely to be just as searing a takedown of society – present and future.
Strahovski herself says she feels privileged, despite the psychological challenges of keeping her pregnancy sacred, to be part of such a seminal show. “It’s always been incredible how moved people are by it. I mean, moved emotionally and moved in a disgusted way – and everything in between! It really does speak to people on so many different levels. Only a few TV shows that can say that they do that.”
The runaway success of “The Handmaids” (as Yvonne refers to it) and its increasingly vital contribution to the global women’s rights debate – as well as the support of her “insanely amazing husband [actor and producer Tim Loden] who came to work with me every single day with my baby so I was never far away and could still breastfeed on demand” – helped to persuade her back to work just seven weeks after having her son.
And she’s exceptionally upfront about how difficult this was. “They were already filming, around the time I was giving birth,” she says. “And they were waiting for me to show up. It was definitely one of the hardest and most challenging moments ever in my entire career. Coming back to work with a newborn and all the sleep deprivation that comes with that, plus I was breastfeeding. And then knowing that I was going to be hit pretty hard with my scene work, because they have backed it all up. Everyone was pretty well into the fifth episode when I got back, so we were playing catch-up on the Serena Joy scenes that we hadn’t done yet, because of my absence.
“I was running in between set and my trailer, breastfeeding on demand and doing scene work. It was crazy being all ‘miserable Serena’ and then coming in and having so much joy looking at my baby, and then going back into the scene and then coming back again and breastfeeding and being happy.”
However, being thrown into work so soon after giving birth helped, in a strange way, with her acceptance of her post-baby body. “I guess it’s a good thing in a lot of ways. I was so busy, just with focusing on my baby and wanting to be as present as I possibly could in and amidst the work that I had, that I just sort of forgot about my body. I mean, obviously I still had a bigger body when I started filming season three, and it just kind of shrunk as I went along.
“But I was so busy that I would forget about myself and two weeks would go by and I’d finally get to have a shower,” she jokes. “And I’d just stop for a second and look in the mirror and go, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve lost weight again.’ It was harder on the costume department than me!”
When I ask Yvonne if she was pleased that she was able to go back to work so quickly, or whether, in any other circumstances, she would have done it differently, she pauses for the first time. “I would say that I am really pleased with how it turned out,” she says. “You know, I think there’s pros and cons to both ends of it. I was devastated to begin with, if I’m honest. It was like a ticking time bomb, knowing that I was going to go back to work and that I was going to have to part with my baby for the hours that I would be on set filming. Even knowing my husband was there with him, I was still dreading being apart. Emotionally, I just didn’t want to let go and be away.
“But in hindsight looking back on it, I think that because I knew I was going back to work, I appreciated every single little moment that I had with him – including the breakdowns in the middle of the night, where I was just so tired that I was crying and nothing else was happening at the moment, except you’re just devastated that you’re tired.
“Even those moments were oddly appreciated because I knew that this was going to be it. And time flies so quickly with little ones, you know, and the next day they change and they’re not so little anymore and that’s the only time that you get.”
If her husband hadn’t been able to accompany her to the set, she admits: “I probably wouldn’t have done it to be honest, if I had to hire some person who I didn’t know.”
But the impact of the show, both on her – emotionally and career-wise – and the audience (it became US channel Bravo’s most-watched show from the first episode), inspires her constantly.
She says that she and costar Elisabeth Moss spend almost all their time together on set, in and out of character. But often, rather than larking about, they’re constantly “discussing the scenes and what we’re getting at for each episode, what we’re trying to achieve.” Yvonne adds: “The relationship [between Serena and Offred] is so fascinating as it allows us to take a deep dive into really unexplored areas of a relationship like that on screen. They have seen each other do so much and have manipulated each other so much, it’s kind of very hard for these two characters to bullshit each other. So, we had to elevate it into a new territory for the new season. I mean, I enjoy reading it, when I get the script. I enjoy shooting the scenes and then seeing the finished product.”
But how does she – and the rest of the cast and crew – switch off? “For me, it’s been way easier because I have my son constantly and he’s such a great smiley baby, so my hands are full. But we also all have fun. I mean, we were doing an all-nighter the other night, we shot til 7.30am, there was a guitar on set and we had a little sing along. During camera set-up, we were just keeping it fun and singing weird songs together.”
Yvonne’s candidness, not just about her work, but her family (despite the fact she has as yet refused to reveal the name of her son), is refreshingly non-Hollywood. Part of it may be due to the fact that she’s achieved global acclaim relatively far into her career. While she’s been on screen for over 15 years on high-profile shows including Dexter, Chuck and 24, it’s her turn as Serena Joy that has propelled her to the awards ceremonies and red carpets.
But she also attributes her success to her parents, Piotr, an electronic engineer, and Bożena Strzechowski, a lab technician, who left a then-Communist Poland in 1980 to start a new life in Australia – and instilled in her a passion for a less materialistic life. “My family and my friends keep me grounded and keep it real,” Yvonne says. “I grew up with parents who didn’t have much. In fact, they didn’t have a lot at all, so they really appreciated everything they had, because they really had to earn it. I was taught that if I got a hole in a pair of socks, I didn’t throw them out. We sewed up the hole and we kept wearing the socks. I’ve been brought up to not be wasteful and I think that’s such a great foundation to have.”
However, she laughingly confesses that her contribution to sustainable and recycled fashion has been somewhat accidental. “I haven’t paid too much attention to what designers are doing, probably because I spend a lot of my time… I mean half my wardrobe is from the thrift shop – if I’m allowed to say that! Not because I don’t want to spend money on something, but I just find really cool stuff at really cool thrift shops – and that’s what I want to wear.
“Right now, I’m staring at a one-dollar red flannel shirt that I found in a thrift shop up in Big Bear, California. And I’ve got a heart-covered sweater that I love that I got from somewhere for ten bucks.”
Jokes aside, her dedication to not hurting the planet is very real – and during our conversation it becomes clear how big an issue it is in her daily life. “The biggest thing for me is trying not to be wasteful. I’m a bit mad about it. I get the guilts really easily, when I have to throw something out. It can be as simple as let’s say a dustpan that you bought that cracked and you have to throw it out. I always think, ‘Ugh, great, it’s going to end up in the ocean now unless it’s recyclable.’
“I try to be super simple with the way that I live, with my food, not using plastic bags – and if I do end up with a plastic bag, I keep it and I just use it over and over again. Instead of cling wrap I buy those reusable ones. And if I don’t have my travel mug with me, I make sure I do not grab the plastic lid to go with my paper cup.
“It’s little things that each one of us can do. I believe it is making a difference. You have to tackle it one by one. Just pick one thing. If you’re a person who likes take-outs all the time, decide that your focus is carrying a regular fork and a regular knife with you in your handbag. Commit to using that and washing it and never getting the plastic.”
As a result of her ‘one step at a time’, no-blame attitude, she’s reassuringly honest about areas that she herself hasn’t embraced or tackled yet. She is not a vegetarian, despite her concerns about the amount of plastic animals, particularly fish, consume. And she has not ditched her son’s disposable nappies in favour of terry cloth ones: “I’m ashamed to say no, I haven’t tried it. That’s one thing that I haven’t been able to do. But maybe that’s the next thing to look at.”
As our conversation draws to a close, and a phone call from her husband – who is looking after their son while we speak – summons her away, I sneak in one last question about what season three of the hit show has in store. She laughs. “It’s always so hard to talk about it without giving it away. But as usual there are some surprises around the corner. And I’ve got a really great arc in this story.”
Of that, I have no doubt. It’s the very least this unique, candid and exceptionally engaging actress – on screen and off – deserves.
The Handmaid’s Tale season three is out now
