‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Spinoff ‘The Testaments’ Gets Series Order: Filming Date, New Cast & More Updates

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for Margaret Atwood‘s The Testaments novel.]

The Testaments, a spinoff series of Hulu‘s The Handmaid’s Tale, has gotten an official series order and has rounded out its cast. This comes as The Handmaid’s Tale prepares to release its final season on Tuesday, April 8. Production on The Testaments begins April 7 in Toronto, Canada.

As previously announced, Ann Dowd will reprise her role as Aunt Lydia in the spinoff. She’s joined by Presumed Innocent‘s Chase Infiniti as Agnes (aka grown-up Hannah, daughter of June and Luke) and Lucy Halliday as Daisy. Lydia, Agnes, and Daisy are the main protagonists of the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name on which the series is based. The spinoff series has been in development since 2022 and will debut after the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Rowan Blanchard was the newest cast member revealed for this Hulu spinoff, her casting announced on March 25. Amy Seimetz, Brad Alexander, and Mabel Li will also be series regulars alongside Blanchard. Here’s everything there is to know about the upcoming series.

What is The Testaments about?

Here’s the first official series description for the spinoff, per Variety on Tuesday, April 1: “For these young women, growing up in Gilead is all they have ever known, having no tangible memories of the outside world prior to their indoctrination into this life. Facing the prospect of being married off and living a life of servitude, they will be forced to search for allies, both new and old, to help in their fight for freedom and the life they deserve.”

Who is in The Testaments cast?

L-R: Chase Infiniti, Ann Dowd, Lucy Halliday (Vivien Killilea / Getty Images for SCAD; Hulu; Euan Cherry / Getty Images)

Dowd, Infiniti, and Halliday were the first stars announced. Blanchard will be a series regular in the debut season. She plays Shunammite, “a pampered teen from a prominent Gilead family whose status affords her a certain level of respect and power amongst her peers,” per Deadline.

Seimetz plays Paula, “the hard-shelled homemaker and fearsome stepmother to Agnes,” per Variety. The younger version of Hannah/Agnes is played by Jordana Blake in The Handmaid’s Tale. Alexander plays Garth, “a young Commander who becomes involved in the personal lives of the girls he’s sworn to protect.” Li plays Aunt Vidala, “the stern heir-apparent to the women’s sphere of Gilead.”

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Additional new cast announced on April 1 are Zarrin Darnell-Martin as Aunt Gabbana, Eva Foote as Aunt Estee, Isolde Ardies as Hulda, Shechinah Mpumlwana as Jehosheba, Birva Pandya as Miriam, and Kira Guloien as Rosa.

Infiniti was most recently seen in Apple TV+‘s Presumed Innocent, her first major role. Halliday is a newcomer as well. Her feature film debut was in 2022’s Blue Jean, for which she won a Scottish BAFTA Award for lead actress. She was also nominated for a British Independent Film Awards in 2022 for that performance. Halliday recently wrapped filming on James McAvoy‘s California Schemin’.

Agnes is the name given to June and Luke’s daughter, Hannah, after she’s kidnapped by Gilead and taken in by a commander and his wife. Baby Nichole from The Handmaid’s Tale, June and Nick’s daughter, is a character in The Testaments. Her smuggling out of Gilead and into Canada makes her a martyr-like figure for Gilead.

After learning shocking details about her life, Daisy sneaks into Gilead using the name Jade to try and gather intel that could bring down Gilead for good. Agnes, meanwhile, trains to become an aunt (Aunt Victoria) after she’s horrified to learn of Gilead’s customs that would see her married off to a commander at a young age. She gets involved with Mayday, the organization working to bring down Gilead, and meets Daisy in the process.

Infiniti’s casting as Agnes confirms that The Testaments is doing a time jump. And with heavy source material such as this dystopian novel, it’s for the best that kids aren’t taking on these roles.

Has The Testaments started filming?

Variety reports that filming on The Testaments begins on Monday, April 7, in Toronto, the day before The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 premieres.

When does The Testaments come out?

What happens in The Testaments?

Sophie Giraud / Hulu / Everett Collection

The Testaments takes place 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale and tracks the lives of Lydia, Agnes, and Daisy through alternating POVs. All three are questioning their relationships with Gilead. The series is created and showrun by Bruce Miller.

Viewers already know Lydia and Agnes. Daisy is a young Canadian teen whose life is changed forever when she learns her connection to the Republic of Gilead.

Atwood’s The Testaments novel was published in 2019 and is the official sequel to the original book published in 1985. In it, the three main characters recount what happened after the final moments of the first book, when June Osborne was taken by The Eyes (this took place at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1, and all plot since has been created by the show for the show). The fate of Gilead after that moment is revealed in the sequel.

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The Testaments being set 15 years after the end of Season 1 allows The Handmaid’s Tale‘s show plot to exist in that time between. The final season will likely set up the spinoff, and it already started laying the foundation in Season 5. With Aunt Lydia as a main character, part of that work is already done.

Aunt Lydia has a surprising development in The Testaments, one that aligns with her waning support of Gilead shown in Season 5 of the Hulu series.

Miller stepped down from his role on the Emmy-winning drama to refocus his efforts on The Testaments. This was announced in March 2023 in Variety. He had served as showrunner for every season prior.

Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang, who were writers and executive producers on previous seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale, have taken over from Miller as co-showrunners for the sixth and final season, which is currently in production. Miller is still working on Handmaid’s as a writer and executive producer, he’s just no longer steering the ship.

What has Ann Dowd said about The Testaments?

George Kraychyk / Hulu

After Aunt Lydia’s loyalty to Gilead started to fade in Season 5, which ended in 2022, Dowd confirmed that the season planted the seeds for her role in The Testaments and that Aunt Lydia’s “blinders are coming down.”

“The conversation really happens over time. Meaning, there’s a general discussion, because we are headed toward The Testaments,” Dowd told Entertainment Weekly. “So we know that somehow Lydia is going to begin to see the light and begin to realize what’s actually going on, as opposed to what she thought was going on with the commanders and also what she could bear to actually see without blinders, if you will.”

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She added: “First off, writers are smart, I know nothing about how it will proceed, except that it will. I have done the audiobook of The Testaments. So I am familiar with it. It’s brilliantly written, as is everything Margaret Atwood does — it’s quite extraordinary. To speak broadly, she’s moving into far more awareness of her own complicitness, if that is a word, and actually what’s going on underneath all of the pretend stuff at Gilead. Pretend meaning, what commanders say is going on, what the values of Gilead are supposed to be, but aren’t. The blinders are coming down, the walls are coming down. She’s a very smart woman, she knows men have the power at the moment. And so what she needs to do is be alert, aware, keep track, and keep it hidden. And just to make her moves slowly. She has tremendous patience. It’s just a wonderful progression into herself, and also into what she wants to now do with what she knows. And I find her very inspiring as time goes on.”

Is June Osborne in The Testaments?

June, Nick, and Luke are all mentioned in The Testaments, but we won’t reveal what happens with them here so as not to spoil the book’s ending. It is narratively possible that Elisabeth Moss, Max Minghella, and O-T Fagbenle could appear in The Testaments, provided their characters aren’t killed off in The Handmaid’s Tale‘s final season. Even then, however, flashbacks are always possible.

Ahead of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6 premiere, Moss told TV Insider that she’s not likely to appear in The Testaments. “I mean, no,” she said with a slight grin. “[But] I would totally lie to you if I was!” She did, however, say that The Testaments being made freed up narrative space for The Handmaid’s Tale.

“We didn’t have to worry about ‘Was this the end, the end, the end,‘ you know what I mean?” Moss said. “We are able to say, ‘Maybe we’ll come back to that?’ That was really liberating.” She also said she’s “looking forward to” seeing the spinoff come to life.

Stay tuned here as we continue to report the latest on The Testaments.

The Handmaid’s Tale, Season 6 Premiere, Tuesday, April 8, Hulu

The Testaments, Series Premiere TBA, Hulu

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