(Warning: Spoilers ahead.)
We have all had conversations where someone says they want to work with you, and nothing comes of it. But when Elisabeth Moss implied to D’Arcy Carden that a role on The Handmaid’s Tale could be on the horizon, it wasn’t a case of polite small talk at an awards show. Not only is Carden guest-starring in the final season of the hit Hulu dystopian drama, but she is playing an integral role in bringing down the Gilead power structure from within.
The Good Place and The Handmaid’s Tale were part of the same awards cycle (both shows debuted during the 2016-2017 season), which planted the initial seeds when Moss pulled Carden aside to praise her work as Janet on the Mike Schur sitcom. “This is such a privileged little thing to say, but when your shows are nominated for awards, you get to go to all these fancy events and meet Elisabeth Moss,” Carden tells The Daily Beast Obsessed. “You get to be next to people you’re watching on TV.”
For Carden, this was a thrill as not only had she been a fan of Moss since her days on The West Wing, but The Handmaid’s Tale is one of her favorite shows. The latter is also one of those things people say at glitzy parties, but don’t really mean. However, there is zero insincerity in Carden’s infectious enthusiasm as she discusses the series as an avid viewer and the heightened experience of stepping onto the set of Bruce Miller’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s politically charged 1985 novel.
The Good Place finished in 2020, but Moss didn’t forget the “I want to work together” comment. “She followed through with it. It’s such a rare and cool thing when someone as powerful as her actually goes through with what they said they’re gonna do,” Carden says. Cut to fall 2024, and Carden’s first day on set as Aunt Phoebe was surreal. Or rather, “a mind f—.”
During the four months she was shooting in Toronto (one of those being outdoor night shoots in January), Carden didn’t lose this feeling. “I was never like, ‘Oh, just a normal day at work.’ I would come to the set and see some crazy thing,” she says. “It was this actor’s dream plus fan dream.”
While it is a “surprisingly light fun set,” the material swings darker than a lot of Carden’s previous work (on shows including The Good Place, Broad City, Barry, and A League of Their Own). She grabbed this opportunity with both hands: “I get to be a part of some gigantic things. Handmaid’s has never been a show that ever does filler anyway, but especially the last half of the last season.”
Whether Aunt Phoebe will make it out of Gilead alive is unclear, but the new character is making an impact late in the game, and Carden calls the experience “a real win for me.”
At first, Phoebe appears to be another cog in the totalitarian state machine as one of the hardened women in charge of training the handmaids before they are sent to fulfil their duties as “sacred vessels” for the commanders and their wives. But when June (Moss) and Moira (Samira Wiley) sneak back into Gilead as part of the Mayday rebellion to launch an attack after Serena Joy’s (Yvonne Strahovski) wedding, Phoebe’s loyalty becomes clear.
Carden laments not having the script in front of her to get the exact stage direction. Still, her recollection of discovering Aunt Phoebe’s allegiance underscores her excitement: “It says, my line, ‘Let the revolution begin.’ And then the next stage direction just says, ‘She’s one of us.’ Oh, this rules! I was squealing with delight.” It shouldn’t go unmentioned that “Let the revolution begin” is also the tagline for the final season. “That was one of those lines where I was like, I get to say this?!” says Carden.
As a woman on the inside working for the rebellion, Aunt Phoebe has to keep up appearances when chaperoning the handmaids (including the undercover June and Moira) to Serena’s wedding. Phoebe is in charge while the watchful and paranoid Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) has been sent out of town by Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford), who is also in on the plan. The wedding cake has been laced with a strong sedative so the handmaids can kill their fast-asleep warhawk commanders as the rest of the city slumbers. Unfortunately, Lydia returns early and clicks that something is awry.
Phoebe bluffs her way out of other scenarios, but fails to distract Lydia this time. Considering Carden is a UCB alum, I wondered if a background in improv is a valuable skill for surviving Gilead. “A hundred percent. It’s funny that you said this, because I don’t want to give anything away at all, but there are reasons why I really thought about that a lot,” she teases. “It’s a great for taking improv classes.”
There is no way for Phoebe to “yes and” her way out of Lydia’s discovery that the handmaids-in-training are still fully dressed even though they are tucked up in bed. It looks like it is lights out for Phoebe when Lydia orders a Guardian to point his gun at the traitor. TV rarely shoots in order, and this massive turning point was Carden’s first day on the job: “It was the most iconically Handmaids-y [scene]. I was laughing when I got my call sheet to see what my first shot would be.”
It is a full circle moment to the first season, bringing OG handmaids Moira, June, and Janine (Madeline Brewer) back together wearing the crimson uniform in the building where their nightmare began. “They were saying to each other, ‘I haven’t worn this in years’ or, ‘We haven’t been in this scene together in years,” says Carden. “It’s such a moment for the show, and having that be my first scene was absolutely surreal and cool. I was thrilled.” Phoebe is saved thanks to the impassioned pleas from June, Janine, and Moira, which sees Lydia listen to their pleas to let all the handmaids go.
In a symphony of powerhouse performances, acting opposite Dowd didn’t disappoint. “When you are ready to run lines, she’s in character, she can’t help but have tears in her eyes,” says Carden. “Every day I would hold her hand, and I would be like, ‘Ann, you’re changing my life, Ann, I love you so much. I love you so much. I worship you.’ And she’d be like, ‘Oh, darling, darling, no.” You’ll have to take my word for it, but the latter is an uncanny impression of Dowd’s recognizable voice.
One person who did the impossible was Bradley Whitford: “He’s the only actor that made me break on the set of Handmaid’s. You don’t break on Handmaid’s, there’s nothing to break about, but he made me break because he’s Bradley Whitford-ing.” I correctly guessed it was in the scene at the wedding reception when Aunt Lydia makes her early return and is convinced she saw June sneak out. Lydia did see June, but Commander Lawrence makes it sound like she is crazy. Carden describes Whitford as “your favorite part of everything you’ve ever seen him in” and “as good as it gets.”
Carden did a couple of scenes with Whitford in the Molly Shannon movie, Other People: “He’s always remembered it. He always remembers me. He’s never like, ‘Who are you again?’ He’s always given me respect and the time of day. I’ve never gotten over that.” On the Handmaid’s Tale set, she would sit wide-eyed as he told stories during lunch breaks. Off set, she would have “fun, cozy Toronto dinners” with Whitford and his wife, Amy Landecker.
Joining a cast in the final season of a show that has been in production for nearly a decade comes with a lot of “new kid energy” that she shared with a friend and fellow Season 6 newcomer Timothy Simons (who gets a great death scene in this week’s episode). “A lot of them have been together since the beginning. So getting to witness people’s last episode and last scene together was pretty intense,” Carden says. “Even if I hadn’t watched the show, it would have been emotional for me. But knowing the show as well as I did as a fan, it was absolutely bonkers.”
Shooting on location means spending time together off set, “because no one is living their real lives out there and they really let me in.” Case in point, a cast trip to see one of Taylor Swift’s Toronto Eras Tour shows in November last year. Carden also uses this as an example to show how someone like Moss can go from being “chit-chatty” to focused: “Lizzie Moss is a huge Taylor Swift Fan—as we all are—and she was excitedly talking about some moments from the night before, this song and that song, and this costume change. It truly was ‘And action,’ and then full tears. She’s one of the best actors I’ve ever acted with.”
Being on a show with more parallels to real-life than Atwood may have intended adds an extra dimension, and Carden is no stranger to playing a character stuck in the “Bad Place.” But what is it like being on The Handmaid’s Tale while the world is on fire? “The whole time this show has been on the air, it’s been on fire in different versions. But this book was written a long time ago, and I’m sure the world was on fire in a different way then,” says Carden. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if this TV show and book in the future seem like an alternate reality, instead of so close to our own?” It sure would!
With two more episodes remaining, and then The Testaments (the Ann Dowd-starring sequel that is currently in production), it doesn’t seem like many characters will get a happy ending. However, Carden still finds strength in the material: “It’s the fighting spirit, the fact that they’re fighting for each other and their children, and for good. It always makes me feel strong.” Amen to that.
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