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Handmaids in hell teach the world from TV

Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski has a leading role in one of the most talked-about US TV shows of the year, The Handmaid's Tale.

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Source: AAP


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Timing, they say, is everything.

It's a phrase the creators of US TV show The Handmaid's Tale must be very familiar with following their show's release this year.

The series, based on a three-decade old book written by Margaret Atwood, is a pertinent feminist tale that has incredible resonance with reality.

"We could never have planned for this, ever," said Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski, who stars in the show.

"You go back to the book, which was written in '84 and published in '85, and now, here we are in 2017, making a show that we started shooting pre-American presidential election and then post, and all the different headlines that have come up since then.

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"It's just been incredible to see the parallels. It is very eerie."

Set in a totalitarian dystopia in the near future, the show depicts a world in which the few remaining fertile women, known as handmaids, are enslaved to bear children.

Strahovski plays Serena Joy, the wife of the Commander played by Joseph Fiennes and the pair enslave a handmaid called Offred played by Elizabeth Moss.

When the cameras stopped rolling, Strahovski says she found it hard to face her co-star Elizabeth Moss after the brutal treatment of her character.

"I spend a lot of time apologising for what was happening between action and cut," she said.

"It's so brutal and those were the hardest scenes to film, when Serena has to really switch off her empathy for another person because she is also striving to survive, she wants the baby out of the handmaid and she will do whatever it takes at the expense of the handmaid."

Strahovski says the US political shift brought something new to the table.

"I think it was definitely a shock to the system to find out the results of the presidential elections here," she said.

"There were a lot of jokes prior to the election like 'haha won't our show be more relevant if Hillary (Clinton) loses, hahaha' and then suddenly you have Hillary really losing and (Donald) Trump is the president."

Some commentators have compared Strahovski's character with Donald Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump.

"I do see the parallel, in essence it's all about being a passive bystander," the actress said.

"In Serena's position she is allowing for this world to carry on, she is allowing for a handmaid to be a sex slave in her house and to not do anything about the fact that this woman has no rights. Obviously it's an extreme example but there are these parallels."

* The Handmaid's Tale is available on SBS On Demand


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