The Testaments Newcomer Lucy Halliday Knows Just How to Make a Statement
The Testaments, Hulu's new dystopian drama loosely based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, will not only fill the Handmaid's Tale–sized hole left in your heart after last May's series finale, but it will also introduce you to some terrific young performers worth keeping on your radar. Set in the not-too-distant future of the events of its Emmy-winning predecessor, The Testaments finds itself in the halls of an elite, all-girls preparatory school in Gilead-run America, where its teen pupils are being educated solely on how to become the ideal submissive wife. When Agnes (Chase Infiniti), the daughter of a wealthy commander, is assigned to oversee the development of Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a Pearl Girl (a recruit from the outside world), the two form a bond that will change the course of their lives and the repressive regime forever. While Infiniti is hardly a new name these days after her spectacular award-season run for her breakout role in One Battle After Another, up-and-comer Halliday is making her stateside debut, delivering an Emmy-worthy performance of her own.
The Scottish actress, a BAFTA winner for her role in the 2022 queer drama Blue Jean, had subconsciously been preparing for the role of Daisy since her grade-school days growing up outside of Glasgow as an avid reader of Atwood novels. When the role came her way, she wanted the job more than anything. An actor's dream, it was an opportunity to play two characters in one: free-spirited, rebellious Toronto Daisy and reserved and pious Gilead Daisy. Halliday was up for the challenge, bringing nuance to the young girl's duality and a winning dynamic with Infiniti.
It's not just Halliday's performance on-screen that has us calling the actress one to watch right now. Her recent looks for the show's press tour prove she's a budding fashion star in the making too. There was the Elie Saab golden stunner for the opening ceremony of Series Mania in France, a series of lace and pastel confections during the Euro leg of the trip, and finally a Pearl Girl–inspired Vivienne Westwood number for the L.A. premiere. With eyes firmly planted on Halliday, we caught up with the actress ahead of the show's April 8 premiere to talk about her stateside debut, the valuable career advice she learned from Infiniti, her love of a statement piece, and what she hopes young women take away from watching The Testaments.
Congrats on the show. It's fantastic. How familiar were you with The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments prior to joining the series?
I was an avid Margaret Atwood fan growing up, so I read all her books. I was very well acquainted with her work, and I actually remember when The Testaments book came out. My friend brought it into school, and we were talking about it. And like many people, I did The Handmaid's Tale in school. I'd seen the show, and I was aware of how prolific it had been. I was definitely in love with Margaret Atwood before ever getting to board this project, and I think that made it even more exciting, especially when this came up.
Daisy is a Pearl Girl, so she has an interesting perspective having been raised outside of Gilead and coming into this world later. What were the aspects of this character that felt really interesting to you?
The key part of it would be her duality. She is getting to play two characters. When you get a job, getting to play one character is exciting, but when you get a job that allows you to play two, it's just even more so. … Especially in this world of Gilead, where everyone is very pious and presented pristinely, getting to have a side that is a complete alter ego to that and is a lot more snarky and a lot more ballsy, that's so fun. I think that was immediately what appealed to me, and I was continually trying to find balance with her duality throughout filming.
Even when she's in Gilead, I never wanted her to lose who she actually is because we don't [change] just because we're in a new environment or we're with new people or having to contort how we perform. We don't lose where we come from. We don't lose our roots. That was very important to me, so it was quite fun trying to sneak it in at points or show the audience who she really is. That was something I worked out with Bruce quite a lot. How do we keep Daisy when she's not getting to be full Daisy? But the immediate aspect of what appealed to me about her was her fire, her drive. She's really funny. I have continually been taken aback by lines, especially in the voice-over. She's just a great character, and she's a real privilege to play. I was a fan of hers when I read the book, so to get to bring her to life is nerve-racking because I don't want to screw up younger me's perspective on it.
You talk about these two distinct sides of Daisy, her life as a Toronto teen and then in Gilead as a Pearl Girl. How was it juggling both sides of her?
I actually did have a playlist. They weren't divided, but the songs that got added were very contrasting depending on what location I was in and also what part of the story. It was quite interesting once we wrapped, going back to look at the journey Daisy had gone on, because they were so diverse in music. Music was very crucial. Every job I've done, I've had a playlist for the character. If I hear a song that encapsulates the character's energy in any way, I add it to a playlist, and then quite often in the drive in, in the morning, that's what I'll be listening to just to get into that headspace in that sense.
The costume was also so informative on this job for everyone, but especially in trying to establish the duality of Daisy, it helped massively. In Toronto, she's wearing normal clothes. There's greater freedom of movement. She's relaxed, and it's a lot more expressive, the clothing that she's wearing. Whereas in Gilead, you're physically restricted. Even as an actor, the costumes are restrictive. You can only lift your arms so high, or you're having to hold yourself in a different way and walk in a different way because of how they're built. That's massively informative to the character, and you're not having to imagine what that would feel like because you're experiencing it. Also, just by nature of the Pearl Girl, she's pristine from head to toe. She has been wiped of any kind of exterior facet that would define her in any way. That also helps, so I had quite a lot to draw from.
How would you describe the vibe of the Daisy playlist?
It was really diverse. Genuinely, if there was a song that encapsulated her energy in any way, that's what got added. It started off with… I think we had Doja Cat for Toronto, and then it changed as time went on. I have "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan. I think that was upon her entrance into Gilead. We've got a real mix. I've got a song called "I Shall Wear a Crown" by Pastor T.L. Barrett, and it's really choral. A lot of the music I just applied to how she moved as well. Oh, I've also got "On a Bicycle Built for Two"—classic. Daisy has a lot of different moments in the show, so it created a lot of nuance in the music that I could add.
Because you often create playlists for your characters, when you hear a song in the wild, are you immediately transported back to that character or time of filming?
Oh yeah, definitely. My first job was a film called Blue Jean, and I listened to a lot of Talking Heads, specifically "Once in a Lifetime." To this day, if I'm going about and I hear that song come on—and I do hear it a lot because Talking Heads is very much in the ether—I'm immediately straight back there. I can feel myself back on that set.
Agnes, played by Chase Infiniti, takes Daisy under her wing. Infiniti has had such a big year with her breakout in One Battle After Another. What can you tell me about meeting for the first time and working together on such a big project so early in both of your careers?
Meeting Chase was such an instant connection. I think we both landed in Toronto on the same night, so we immediately went and got dinner. There was no legwork required to build that friendship. It was there already. She's just such a brilliant person, and you wanted to be friends with her. I think that definitely fostered how much fun we could have in the scenes where we are butting heads because we had that comfort in knowing that … we're not gonna upset the other person or push the other person too much because there was a real friendship already established. So it definitely allowed for a lot more tension to take place. It's interesting because we then got to witness, as the season developed, this wonderful friendship with Agnes and Daisy, but that was just emulating the friendship that Chase and I had already developed, and it was really nice to almost have it catching up with us. I couldn't have asked for a better sparring partner for this.
She is also still so early in her career, but she's very experienced already, and to have that source so close to inform me or to be supportive was so crucial to the experience I had. I still find myself following the advice she gave me. She spoke a lot about the power of advocating for yourself on a set and the importance of speaking up, and she was constantly encouraging me to do that. … Even by the end of filming, I could notice a visceral transformation. I've been on set since, and I do advocate a lot differently or a lot easier than I did at the time, and it's because of Chase. I think Agnes and Daisy learn a lot from each other, and I think Chase and I have both learned something from each other, and it is really lovely to have that emulation.
What makes this show work so well is the friendship of the core group of girls. Were you able to spend time together before or during filming? I heard you had weekly dinners.
Chase, Rowan [Blanchard], Mattea [Conforti], and I formed a bond very quickly. … We were all away from home for the first time in Toronto for the first time, and we had that common ground and spent a lot of time together. We went to Medieval Times. We were big Medieval Times fans, and we will be going back. I think we actually went more than once. There were a lot of cinema trips. We saw Superman, with David Corenswet and Nicholas Hoult, like four times. We had weekly dinners, and we'd be debriefing on a week that we all spent together. It was very easy to get on with all of them, and I think part of that was just because of how joyous it was to have found a friendship in that environment.
When you start a job, you don't go into it thinking you're gonna be best friends. Obviously, you hope you're gonna get on with everyone, but you don't really know what the deal is gonna be. It is a beautiful surprise when you realize that you have a deep friendship and love for these girls, and you're getting to spend time together and to support each other. It is a heavy show, and there's a lot of material that is intense and difficult, but … everyone in our cast and everyone in our crew was so kind and supportive and really held you [so] that you could transition seamlessly between doing those intense scenes and giving them your all but also being able to come back to reality and not go home at the end day feeling it all. That's a testament to the environment that we had.
Is there a Testaments group chat? What does that look like today?
So there's one that the four of us have, Chase, Rowan, Mattea, and I, and it's called Dolls because I think our working name for the show was Dollhouse. I think Rowan made it the first day at the table read that we were all together for the first time, and it's still going. It's a real mix of really important information and then TikToks and just who's doing what, where they're doing it. It's an important stronghold.
Daisy wears the same white school uniform for most of the series, so it was fun to see you play with fashion for both this press tour and that of your other project, California Schemin'. Can you talk about your personal style and what you typically gravitate toward on the red carpet?
Well, thank you for saying that. I think I've been really interested in finding the balance of "This is comfortable" and "I feel like myself when wearing it" because that's so crucial to me, but also, I want to be wearing something that feels interesting. That was the key word. I remember I had it from the very start before any of it. I said, "Anything I wear, I want it to be interesting." I don't care whether it's a dress or trousers or whatever. There needs to be an aspect of it that I'm like, "Oh, this is cool—like, this is structural, or this is colorful, or this is texture." There needs to be an aspect of it that feels like it belongs to something cool or like it could be nuanced. But I'm still very early days in the fashion world, and it's something that I'm really enjoying getting to explore in this press tour, and I really hope it continues. Having Chase, who's, you know, a Vuitton ambassador, I'm in awe of that, and I'd love for there to be more fashion in my future, and it's something I'm really enjoying getting to express myself through right now.
This show unfortunately feels quite timely. It holds a mirror to our society in some ways. The Handmaid's Tale had such a big impact, and it feels like you and the cast of The Testaments are carrying that torch for a new generation. What do you hope young women take away from the show?
There's a combination of factors I hope people feel. The importance of sisterhoods and community and the banding together of human beings to enact a change, that's always been an important and present part of society throughout history, and I think that's really reiterated in this show. We see that with these girls, the importance of supporting your neighbor and advocating for a neighbor, and if you can stand up for someone, stand up for someone. That aspect is something that I'd love for audiences to really feel. I think [there's] also an element of hope. There's so much going on that is horrendous, but there is an element of hope that remains, and I think that it's important to keep that alight and to realize that it is possible to make a change, whether it be minute or on a large scale. I hope that we feel that.
Because there are a lot of scenes in our show that are shocking and are very intense, I do hope people are shocked by what they watch because we have such an exposure nowadays to an abundance of things of this nature, whether it be on the news or in a TV show that's fictionalized. We run the risk of becoming desensitized to it because of the abundance that we hear about things. I don't want us to lose that. I hope people see it and still feel shocked because we should never be desensitized or used to hearing or comfortable with hearing these things. That then just coexists with the idea of community because I hope people feel shocked and use that as a fire to take into their own communities and to use their voices in their own communities and do what they can as well.
The Testaments is now streaming on Hulu.
Photographer: Phill Taylor
Stylist: Anna Hughes-Chamberlain
Hairstylist: Miguel Martin Perez
Makeup Artist: Lisa Laudat
