The courage of those handmaids to stay alive and fight back, that’s inspiring."
The series, like Dowd, has yet to emerge on the Emmy radar.
“It asks you to go to a place we typically want to run from.
Credit: HBO
We don’t want to sit with grief, the unknown, or loss.
“It’s painful, it’s brilliant, and it will change you.
It will change the way you look at your life and your experience.
HBO
It changed my whole way of looking at characters.”
“If you [stay with the show], it will change you in the best way.
For a lot of people, the answer is not right now, maybe later.”
HBO
Fornow, however, here’s hoping the Television Academy answers the call appropriately.
Read on for EW’s complete conversation with Dowd.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It’s so shocking to me thatThe Leftovershasn’t received any Emmy nominations to date.
HBO
Why do you think people are so apprehensive about it?
ANN DOWD:It asks you to go to a place we typically want to run from.
We don’t want to sit with grief, the unknown, or loss.
Take Five/Hulu
BecauseThe Leftoversis not a linear experience… it hits us on a level that is unconscious.
It’s painful, it’s brilliant, and it will change you.
It will change the way you look at your life and your experience.
It changed my whole way of looking at characters.
When I first read it, I said, “What is this departure nonsense?
What do you mean, departure?
No one’s departing.
I put the script down.
I said I wasn’t interested.
I read it again, and something changed inside… once we started filming, I was so in.
Then, I thought,oh, no.
I can’t bear it.
I can’t lose it.
If you [stay with the show], it will change you in the best way.
For a lot of people, the answer is not right now, maybe later.
They see each other’s fears, vulnerabilities, grief, and how they hide from their lives.
When two people do that, without armor, intimacy results, and that’s a rare experience.
Season 3 is about her returning the favor.
We’re going to blow it up, and we’re going to do it together.
I’m going to be right by your side.
[A lot of it’s] in the writing.
You do your work, you say your prayers, and you [ask her to] not leave.
There were times when I felt she had left me and I didn’t know where she was.
[I latched on to] squaring off with her grief.
I kept going back to that place… [In season 3], she’s dropped her burdens.
She’s come through the other side…
There was a consistency in that.
So you feel as if you and the writers did Patti justice at the end of season 3?
The danger is so much closer.
I wasn’t taking it seriously, and that’s a red flag: not reading the current correctly.
It’s the same withThe Handmaid’s Tale.
[When Trump was] elected, I was texting [costar Elisabeth Moss].
We were in despair.
The courage of those handmaids to stay alive and fight back, that’s inspiring.
How do you approach painting her as a character?
I asked Bruce Miller, the wonderful showrunner, what [Lydia] did in her prior life.
He said he thought she was a schoolteacher, and that resonated so strongly with me.
I believe she wants to shepherd them through this experience… Lydia feels responsible for them.
