During prep for The Testaments, creator and showrunner Bruce Miller knew this show would be very different from its antecedent, the Emmy-winning series The Handmaid's Tale.
Hulu’s new dystopian drama, premiering April 8, is again set in the totalitarian territory of Gilead, but at a girls’ school where the only education is about how to be a submissive wife. With a core cast comprised of young actresses, many of them light on experience, Miller began to wonder: Should preproduction involve bonding activities to foster an atmosphere of tight teen friendships? In other words, should he engineer a harmonious workplace instead of just hoping for one?
“What I learned on The Handmaid’s Tale is if you have every piece working, it’s great,” Miller says. “But if one piece isn’t working, it can sour things very quickly. So, I’m very, very careful. We had lots of plans.”
But Miller realized his bonding strategies were unnecessary when he saw how Lucy Halliday, who plays Gilead newcomer Daisy, and Chase Infiniti, who plays Agnes, adopted daughter of a powerful commander, greeted each other upon first meeting in person. "They grabbed on to each other and began jumping up and down," he says. Miller knew that prior to signing on for The Testaments, Infiniti had appeared in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, but he didn’t know she was already in sync with him about what would make The Testaments run smoothly.
Forget Miller’s getting-to-know-you plans — Infiniti had plenty of her own. Months before production began, as soon as Halliday was cast, the women began texting and meeting on Zoom. (Infiniti is based in Chicago; Halliday lives in Paisley, Scotland, just outside of Glasgow.) On their first day together in Toronto, Infiniti drove Halliday to the city’s Koreatown and introduced her to soondubu jjigae — or bubbling Korean tofu stew. Then there were the weekly meetups where Infiniti and Halliday would have dinner with series regulars Rowan Blanchard (Snowpiercer) and Mattea Conforti (The Calling). “It was a kind of debrief on the week — just checking in with each other. It was a ritual that was really helpful, really grounding,” Infiniti says, adding that on her past projects she was always surrounded by much older actors. “I’ve never worked on a show where I’ve been close in age with other girls. Getting to have that connection was so beautiful. We were away from home and building new friendships. It wasn’t hard getting us to hang out together, I will say that.”
The one topic Infiniti didn't say much about was that she had recently completed a leading role in a film made by one of the preeminent filmmakers of his generation. "I wasn't going to go around being like, 'Oh, I'm in a Paul Thomas Anderson film that's coming out on this day, blah, blah, blah.' That feels so weird to me," she says. "So, I'd be like, 'I just shot a movie, and the director is Paul.'" But last April, when Ryan Coogler's Sinners came out, gentle deflection was no longer an option. "One of the cast members went to see the film and saw the trailer for [One Battle After Another]. And the next day he came to the set, and he was like, 'Wait. You're in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie?' And I was like, 'Well, yeah. I am.'"
Infiniti initially came to the production team's attention after her buzz-generating performance as a homicidal teen in Apple TV's Presumed Innocent. It didn't hurt that Handmaid's Tale regular O-T Fagbenle starred as a district attorney on Presumed Innocent and gave her his stamp of approval. "She's a rock star," he told the Testaments team. "You'll love her."
Though Halliday had already won a BAFTA Scotland Award for her role as a closeted teenager in 2022's Blue Jean, she'd only appeared in a couple of British indie films. Infiniti was generous with her TV know-how. "I told her, 'Just be aware it's going to be very quick; we have a lot of material to get through,'" Infiniti recalls. "I also said, 'You're going to want to ask as many questions as you can. Gilead already exists; we're not building a world.'"
Asked what she'd learned from Infiniti, Halliday's thoughts immediately turn to the basics. "She was like, 'The craft truck is the Holy Grail,'" Halliday recalls. "She said, 'You've got to befriend the craft truck [crew]. You can go in and get your snacks for a whole week.' I mean, she also gave me really, really great advice in terms of acting and holding yourself on a set and advocating in scenes and whatnot. But it's the very, very pragmatic craft-truck advice that comes to mind."
How did a rookie like Halliday win the part of Daisy? The story begins the day before Christmas in 2024, when her agents scolded her for neglecting to record a self-tape audition for The Testaments. "They were like, 'We're closing up shop [for the holidays], so either send it in or forever hold your peace,'" Halliday says. "So, I sent this very quick, haphazard thing and forgot about it." By January, she had the part.
Daisy's pre-Gilead habit of getting around by skateboard was a tantalizing aspect of the character's backstory. But Halliday would also discover that the "pearl girl" she plays — Gilead-speak for a girl from the outside world who comes to the school of her own free will, often by recruitment — is the only student at school who’s had sex. Then there are the F-bombs that Daisy injects with so much are-you-kidding-me disbelief that they land like punchlines. “Daisy is an absolute joy,” Halliday says, adding that before recording her narration, she’d sometimes read what she describes as “the snarkiest, most curveball comments” and think, “I can’t believe I’m getting to say this!”
What impressed Miller about Halliday was more than just the spin she knew how to put on a curse word and how well she handled being on her own for the first time ever in a new city with a quick-moving, high-pressure job. He also loves that few viewers would guess what the saucer-eyed, then-21-year-old sounds like off screen. "She sing-songs," Miller says of Halliday's Scottish burr. "Everything is like she's telling you a story in a bar. She's so delightful."
During the first two months of production, Halliday was advised to speak in an American accent 24/7. After that, she felt confident about being able to switch it on and off — except when it came to saying "proper pearl girl." "It was the hardest thing for me, which is quite unfortunate, given that's what my character is," Halliday says. "I remember that Chase, Rowan and Mattea would find great joy in trying to say 'peril gurrow' in a Scottish accent in my ear right before I had a scene where I had to say it."
To read the rest of the story, pick up a copy of emmy magazine here.
This article originally appeared in its entirety in emmy magazine, issue #3, 2026, under the title " Who Runs the World?"
