Elisabeth Moss on the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale

The first five episodes of the sixth and final season of The Handmaid’s Tale are now streaming first on Showmax, with new episodes coming every Wednesday, express from the US.  

Since the first five seasons won 15 Emmys, Season 6 is one of the most anticipated TV shows of 2025. The season has not disappointed, with a 88% critics’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes and MSNBC calling it “more relevant than ever.”

Elisabeth Moss returns to her Emmy-winning role as June, whose unyielding spirit and determination pull her back into the fight to take down Gilead – a patriarchal, totalitarian and theocratic country where the United States of America used to be.  

“The one thing that Elisabeth Moss, as an actor, can’t hide is how strong she is as a person,” says creator and executive producer Bruce Miller. “That comes through even when June is being beaten or imprisoned. You never feel like she’s down and out. Every time Lizzie puts her shoulders back and straightens up, you believe that June can make it through.”  

We caught up with Elisabeth, who also directs the first two and last two episodes this season, to find out more.  

How has June changed since Season 1?  

When we first meet June in Season 1, she has been in Gilead for a few years. She’s completely lost her voice. She’s not allowed to speak. We only hear her thoughts. We start out with her already halfway down the arc. She’s already not the person that she was, which is so interesting for an actor to play.  

Then we flashback and see her as a mom, a wife, a girlfriend. She had a job, drove a car, all these normal, normal things.  

Over the course of the series, June becomes a completely new person, a person who does find her voice: an angry voice, a powerful voice. She’s a different person than she was.  

A lot of the romance with Nick is because of that. They are two people who understand and share the burden of Gilead’s tyranny. 

By Season Six, June evolves into somebody who is stronger, angrier, smarter. Yes, she is carrying a lot more pain, but she has a fight that she didn’t have before. She becomes more and more of a superhero. All moms, all parents, all caregivers of any kind are superheroes. But she does become kind of a real actual hero for this movement. 

It’s important to remember that June is doing nothing new. You just have to look at the endless examples in history and the endless examples that are in front of us right now of people who have been through so much and have managed to retain their dignity. June is not an anomaly at all. She’s the story of so many people that have fought through adversity, whether it’s in their high school or their dance class, or in a country or in a family environment – somebody who feels that they can’t be who they are and has to fight against oppression. She’s like all of us, I think. 

Bring us up to speed on June’s love triangle.  

When Luke gets out of prison, he has such a fire within him. I think he has completely started to change as a character. He has been waiting and waiting and waiting to be able to join this fight, to be able to get in there himself and try to get Hannah back himself. He needs to be able to do something to enact change. And you can just see it from the very beginning. He is ready to go. So as soon as Mark gives him that opportunity, he doesn’t hesitate.  

June is furious with Luke’s choice. She’s trying to keep everyone safe, and Luke signs up for this most dangerous of missions. 

In this season, we also see Nick and June together for the first time in quite a while. Finally, they can talk about things that have been left unsaid.  

June’s relationship with Serena is also central. What was it like working with Yvonne Strahovski?  

Serena is my favourite character besides June and that’s largely due to Yvonne’s performance and how much nuance she brings to her character. She brings a humanity and a vulnerability and a cruelty as well.  

I think that June and Serena’s relationship is the love story of the show. It’s the centre of the show.  

What do you hope the legacy of The Handmaid’s Tale will be?  

The impact of our show mirrors the impact of the book, which has continued to be relevant and continued to affect people on a personal and political level since 1985.  

With the blessing of Margaret Atwood, the series took material further. We lean on what she created and we’re very fortunate to do so.  

The series has become part of the cultural zeitgeist, and that’s an incredible, mind-blowing thing when that happens.  

I’m so proud of what the red handmaid’s costume has come to represent for the resistance. It has become a call to action. It may have been a symbol of repression, but that red cloak has become a symbol of power. As Margaret wrote, “They should have never given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army.” 

Watch the trailer for The Handmaid’s Tale S6, which has over 11m views

Watch The Handmaid’s Tale S6 on Showmax.