Alexis Bledel Joins Hulu's 'The Handmaid's Tale' as Lesbian Ofglen: Report
"The Handmaid's Tale."
Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson for life) leads the series as handmaid Offred, who tries to navigate her way through this totalitarian society. According to TVLine, Bledel "will play the recurring role of Ofglen, Offred's fellow Handmaid and companion. At first, Ofglen seems like a pious rule-follower, loyal to the oppressive Gilead system, but she turns out to be daring and subversive. Fun additional fact free of charge: Bledel's character is also a lesbian." That's a promo shot of Bledel's Ofglen above. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bledel will appear in more than half of the episodes with an option to return in the yet-to-be announced Season 2.
In this patriarchal world, young and fertile woman are classified as "handmaids" for reproductive purposes, forced to sleep with men to bear children, which is certainly bad enough for heterosexual women. In Atwood's book, Ofglen's preferred sexual orientation is not made clear, but it is clear that she is a rebel.
Moss and Bledel worked together on "Mad Men," which is where Bledel met her now-husband Vincent Kartheiser. Moss told THR casting Bledel was "a happy coincidence."
"We really wanted to find somebody that could be strong and magnetic with a certain weight to them. At the same time, you want a good actress and somebody who is willing to come in and give everything they have got and do something that they really hadn't done before. When Alexis' name came through, it was perfect. She has this incredible fragility and vulnerability to her, but there is another side — a strength and a toughness to her, that some people maybe haven't seen ... Obviously it doesn't hurt that she's a friend of mine."
The 10-episode series co-stars Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Max Minghella, Ann Dowd, Samira Wiley, and Madeline Brewer, and premieres April 26 on Hulu.
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