‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Showrunner Reveals How They Snagged Marisa Tomei For Season 2

“How are you doing emotionally?” 

Before I can even ask The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Bruce Miller a single question about Season 2, he’s asking me if I’m doing alright after watching the first string of episodes. After praising the second season, and admitting to him that I was “clawing at my face while watching it,” he cheerfully said, “Those two statements are basically my reaction to it, too. I love it…and it makes my skin crawl.”

Since The Handmaid’s Tale debuted last spring on Hulu, the show has taken home Emmys, Golden Globes, and even a Peabody Award. It’s as dramatically spellbinding as it is dark — a perfect realization of author Margaret Atwood‘s haunting novel. We got a chance to chat with Miller about the stress of tackling a second season of such a huge show and he opened up about some of the small, awful moments you’re sure to be buzzing about as soon as you start watching Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale.

**SPOILER ALERT for the first two episodes of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, which are both now streaming on Hulu.**

DECIDER: This season is true to Margaret Atwood’s world but it’s kind of an expansion and you’re in new territory. What was that like and how involved was she in this season? Did she give you any guidance or did you just go wherever you wanted to go with the story?

BRUCE MILLER: That was 100% the intention — to keep the Atwood-ness of it. So what was it like? It was terrifying. I don’t know if it was more terrifying than the prospect of screwing up The Handmaid’s Tale to begin with. But the prospect of screwing up what everybody has been thinking of since they read the book, which is, “What the hell happens next?” It’s a lot of pressure. And it’s added to the pressure of having a show that people are actually paying attention to and to have a show that got lots of accolades, a season two of a show that anybody watches is difficult. So all those things kind of add up to…you’re worried about doing it wrong.

So Margaret has been wonderful and really treated me with so much respect as a writer. It brings tears to my eyes, she’s been so great. She is kind of an expert in having her work adapted. We started to talk about Season 2 halfway through Season 1, just because when you think about it you’re kind of planning Season 2 when you start to get to the end of Season 1. She came into the writers’ room at the beginning of the season, she’s read every script and every outline. So we talk to her a lot. Interestingly, she’s always more encouraging of us to change things than we are. She thinks our ideas are super interesting. So the last thing you want to do is be doing something that she says, “Well I don’t think that’s going to work,” because chances are, it’s not going to work if she says that.

And I think coming into Season 2, we wanted to feel like one of the same. We wanted to feel like part of Atwood’s world and also to pull as many things from the book that you want to see but didn’t get a chance to see. So in that way, it’s not a departure from the book, it’s a continuation of the story.

Was there a particular storyline you found to be especially challenging this season?

One of my favorite storylines is the flashback in the first episode. I found it very challenging about how do you tell the story of the takeover of the government, but from the point of view of someone who just has a normal life and is going through their normal stuff. That was very challenging because you don’t want to give it away and you also don’t want it to feel coincidental like these big things are happening on the same day. I mean also, the domestic scenes I fuss over a lot because I want them to feel real.

And then in Episode 2, the story with Emily (Alexis Bledel); the flashback with Emily and her wife at the airport — it was gut-wrenching to write. It was gut-wrenching to see them do it on the day and I just think such a spectacular piece of visual storytelling by Colin Watkinson and by Clea DuVall, who was just a treasure and came into this one amazing scene with us with Emily. That really was very meaningful to me. I was glad we got to do it and those guys just killed it. Everybody from the terrible guard to all the people at the airport…they were wonderful.

Marisa Tomei is amazing. She’s a surprise, her character [in Episode 2] is a surprise. Could you tell me about casting her and how that storyline came to be?

Well, casting her, we had this interesting role. I grew up with Marisa Tomei. She’s been spectacular and done really interesting things and I love her range. So it’s just kind of a bit of kismet when you say, “What I’d really like is Marisa Tomei for this,” but you don’t ever think about the odds of this working out. It’s chance. But she was available and it all worked out beautifully. Because we had written it and talked about her very initially as kind of a type for that character. I like the way she plays stately and someone who really has a warmth on the inside and I think it worked very well for the character. You really did feel her true faith and kind of a warmer side to her character.

You’re always trying to show relationships between women and how the power of relationships between women is perverted by the terrible, evil compression of Gilead. But also, I think I wanted to show how far Emily has come in terms of what she’s willing to do. So in order to do that, you needed someone who wasn’t just pure evil on the other side, it’s easy to justify killing someone who’s awful. I mean, I don’t think anybody cares who she drove over a Guardian’s head. No one really blinked at that because they’re guys with guns that would shoot you in a second. So that was the big thing and I think that was tied into getting Marisa, who has such warmth and so likeable and relatable. She feels like a person in our world.

And then she was just wonderful. It was not an easy shoot. If you look at it, it was freezing and it was filthy and she was a trooper. She was out there.

The Friends DVD —I thought that was such a specific choice. It kind of speaks to a level of comfort in our pop culture. Was there a reason why it was that particular show that you wanted to highlight?

Yes, because when you look around at kind of the demographic of a 35-year-old woman who grew up in Boston, it is really like something that people have watched over and over and over again. It’s so iconic of a time, but there’s something about it that’s so comforting to have her watch that and just to hear a laugh track. So I wanted it to be something identifiable and specific.

But honestly we took a lot of pictures of newsrooms to populate our newsrooms, and I saw it on someone’s desk. Someone had the collection of Friends DVDs and I was like, “Are they watching that at work? What a good idea!” When you look at the difference in what you imagine would be on someone’s desk and then you start going around and taking pictures on what’s on people’s desks, that was the big thing. So, we wanted it to feel like a newsroom with the depth that it had. So it came from the DVD as opposed to came from our idea that we wanted to watch a television show. We wanted her to find some horror and normalcy there and she finds a way to make peace with the spirits that live there and we thought getting to know them was a good way to do it.

And honestly, the look that Lizzie [Moss] does in that scene when she’s watching Friends is one of my favorite looks. She actually kind of just smiles a little, like, “I’ve seen this a million times and it’s still comforting and fun.“

Was there ever any push back from Hulu because Friends is a Netflix show right now?

No, there wasn’t. They are creatively behind most of the crazy choices I make.

The first two episodes of Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale are now streaming on Hulu.

Stream The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu