Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale may still be mourning the broadcast of its final episode in 2025, but fear not – the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s sequel, The Testaments, is due in April. Filmed in Toronto, the new series explores a cheery cocktail of themes ignited by its predecessor, such as totalitarianism, patriarchy, and rebellion, and features both familiar characters and a fresh young cast. Blessed be the fruit if The Testaments runs for anywhere near as long as The Handmaid’s Tale, because there will be multiple opportunities for castings.
Read on to get ahead of the curve and discover how this zeitgeisty series finds talent.
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If you ever wondered what happened to the characters you rooted for in Handmaid’s, The Testaments may be your answer. Set 15 years after the first book, the story focuses on a new generation of women trying their best to survive an oppressive regime.
It explores the lives of three women: Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the latter played once again by the brilliant Ann Dowd. British newcomer Lucy Halliday will play Daisy, a Canadian teen who has links to Gilead, and Chase Infiniti stars as troubled rich kid Agnes. Handmaid’s lead character June also features in the book, but it’s not yet known whether Elisabeth Moss will return to star in the TV adaptation (although she is an executive producer on it).
”We tried not to make the same show,” showrunner Bruce Miller, who also made Handmaid’s, told the Hollywood Reporter. “It’s got younger voices; it’s got a completely different feel and a completely different vibe, but it’s still Gilead.”
Handmaid’s made the careers of talents like O-T Fagbenle and Amanda Brugel. The casting directors responsible, Russell Scott and Sharon Bialy of Bialy/Thomas & Associates, also cast The Testaments, so hopes are high.
Season 1 is already cast, but there will be more opportunities to come if the show follows the trajectory of Handmaid’s. Russell Scott told Backstage that actors hoping to be discovered need to get their work out there. “You act. You do short films, you do theater,” he says. “That’s how you’re going to get found.” Bialy agrees: “We’ll find you.… We look at people as professionals, and if you keep working hard, the cream rises to the top.”
Bialy told Backstage she looks for talent, commitment, and the ability to “dive into the role without ego.”
“What makes me remember an actor is an actor who went in to tell the story, not the actor who is in there because of the ego,” she says. “A lot of times, actors are told, ‘This is your time in the room.’ That’s not my feeling. It’s not their time; it’s the time for the story. It’s their time to bring the story to life. It’s not all about them.”
Her final tip for audition room approval? “Don’t come in if you’re sick with a cold.… It’s a small room.”
The Testaments cast skews young, with Scott and Bialy working hard to find talent early on in their professional journey. Halliday, for example, has only three other screen credits. She admitted to Screen Daily that before her first professional tryout she remembers “googling how to do an audition.”
Inifiniti, who has a little more professional experience, told SAG-AFTRA how she approaches the audition process. “I treated every audition and every callback as like I had the job, but I wouldn’t put too much pressure on myself where I was like, ‘I have to book this job’,” she says. “I just wanted to tell myself, ‘Trust yourself. You’ve got this. This is nothing outside of what you’re able to do’.”
Bialy agrees that an actor’s attitude is crucial. “It’s not how you are when you’re successful, it’s how you are when you take rejection,” she told Backstage. “As actors know, you can come in and do an amazing audition and for a variety of reasons, you won’t get the job. [You have to] keep going and believe in yourself and eventually it will happen.”
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