‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Star Blames Trump For Making Dystopian Future A Reality

Actor Joseph Fiennes inferred that President Donald Trump is responsible for the world approaching an eerie dystopian future like “The Handmaid’s Tale” depicts, citing the exit from the Paris Agreement and the oppression of women in a Thursday interview with Marie Claire.

Star of the Hulu hit series The Handmaid’s Tale, Fiennes said that the show “has jolted me into a much more alert state of the inequality amongst the sexes.” He added that “it’s hard not to be jolted into a state of consciousness” while playing the role of Gilead, the leader of an oppressive dystopian republic.

“By virtue of that, I feel much more switched on to feminism, and what it means and stands for. I want my daughters to live in a world where there is equality and parity of pay. We’ve got a long way to go. I read a statistic that if you’re a Hispanic woman it’ll be over 200 years until you achieve parity of pay,” Fiennes told Marie Claire.

Fiennes — born in Salisbury, England and raised in West Cork, Ireland — also said that the dystopian future depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale has begun to feel closer to real life over the last year. From the U.S. exiting the Paris Climate Agreement, to the “constant war over women’s bodies” to reproductive autonomy, Fiennes listed what he viewed as parallels between the fictional Gilead and the U.S. in 2017.

Fienne’s co-star, Australian actress Yvonne Strahovski, also drew parallels between the adaption of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel and the present day. “You’re seeing images that you see in the news, marches, women’s marches,” Strahovski said. “It all feels like it’s very much of today. It really shows how easy that road would be to get into a society like what Gilead portrays.”