Elisabeth Moss wasn’t going to leave The Handmaid’s Tale empty-handed.
After starring in six seasons of the hit series, along with serving as an executive producer and director, Moss told The Hollywood Reporter at the show’s final season premiere on Wednesday that when it came to taking home souvenirs from set, “I looted the place.”
“I have a full-set handmaids costume — I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, it’s not like I’m going to wear it,” she laughed. “I have a Scrabble board; I’ve got a lot. I took as much as I could; don’t tell anyone.”
Co-star Yvonne Strahovski said she kept Serena’s leather finger — “I feel like it’s a winner” — and Madeline Brewer kept Janine’s “eye patch, for sure. I walked right off of set and put all my stuff in my bag and got the hell out of there.” Co-showrunner Eric Tuchman also confessed to securing a “bonnet-to-boots” handmaids costume, which he plans to keep in his closet.
On a heavier note, the cast also talked on the carpet about how it felt to release the show’s final season during the current political moment.
“Unfortunately we need The Handmaid’s Tale more than ever; I think we need this season of The Handmaid’s Tale more than ever,” said Brewer. “We need to show that there’s certain inextinguishable flames inside a person that just can’t be taken away, that can’t be stamped out. And that’s never going to change, not in or out of The Handmaid’s Tale. Some things are true and have always been true, like the existence of trans people.”
Bradley Whitford noted that when the show first premiered in April 2017, “the idea that Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned was inconceivable; we have seen over the course of this show women’s health has been totally politicized. We’ve seen a president get elected [while] turning a vulnerable queer community into a political football.”
And as the handmaids in the series are forced to bear children for the men of Gilead, Whitford said with abortion now outlawed in several states that forced births “are happening now and it’s very upsetting. I hope that people understand that this is happening now, but I hope they don’t despair because the heart of this show is June [played by Moss] understanding that despair is a luxury her children can’t afford and action is the anecdote to despair. And we need to be the change.”
Samira Wiley also acknowledged, “It’s definitely nothing that I wanted, for this second term to happen; it’s definitely nothing I ever would have imagined, but I do think that this show, as always, is meeting the world and America where it is.”
The Handmaid’s Tale season six starts streaming on Hulu April 8.