‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Star Says She’s Done With the Show’s ‘Trauma,’ Won’t Return for ‘The Testaments’

Moira Strand’s story will conclude with The Handmaid’s Tale Season 6.

After spending the past eight years portraying June Osborne’s (Elisabeth Moss) best friend and a Gilead refuge, The Handmaid’s Tale star Samira Wiley confirmed that she will not reprise her role in Hulu’s upcoming sequel The Testaments.

“I’m not gonna tease and say maybe or nothing. Nope,” the actress told Parade. “I am done with it. I am done with the trauma. I am. I mean it. Margaret Atwood, the way she writes these characters, the depth to all of it, I feel like I have played my part and my story is done.”

Wiley has appeared in The Handmaid’s Tale since Season 1. Throughout the course of the show, fans have watched as Moira went from a Handmaid (a woman forced into childbearing servitude) to a Jezebel (a woman forced to become a prostitute) and later a refuge finding freedom in Toronto, where she reunited with Luke (O-T Fagbenle) and continued to aid other refugees. In the current season, the show’s last, Moira has joined the fight against Gilead.

Wiley said that due to the nature of her show and the difficult storylines, she “had to learn some techniques — meditation and mindfulness and all of those things — to consciously take myself out of the world of Gilead. I often tell people who binge watch the show like, please take care of your mental health.”

While the flagship series is set to wrap with The Handmaid’s Tale series finale on Tuesday, May 27, the story of Gilead will continue with The Testaments, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel of the same name. The novel and its series adaptation act as a sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, following a new generation of women in Gilead, including Agnes, the name given to June’s daughter Hannah after she was captured and brought to Gilead.

Although the upcoming series will shift focus to a new group of characters, it is also expected that some familiar faces will show up. In addition to Ann Dowd reprising her role as Aunt Lydia, there is hope that Moss will reprise her role as June as a guest star. Creator Bruce Miller also recently told Us Weekly, “we’re gonna bring characters from The Handmaid’s Tale to that world as well. So there are people who show up — but to tell you who they are will take away all the fun.”