‘The Testaments’ EP Warren Littlefield on Making Of, ‘Fargo’ Season 6, More
The Season 1 finale of Hulu’s The Testaments dropped last night, and it was already clear that the Margaret Atwood-born, Bruce Miller-adapted Handmaid’s Tale sequel was a success after the streamer gave it a Season 2 renewal on May 20. Of course, its 45 million hours watched didn’t hurt.
On today’s Crew Call we talk with The Testaments’ EP Warren Littlefield about how the production worked with Atwood to bring the sequel series to fruition (“Margaret in another life probably would have wanted to be part of a writers’ room”). While Atwood’s publishers pursued her for several years for a follow-up to her 1985 novel, she only began putting it together post the award-winning success of the 2017 TV series.
The Testaments follows the story of June’s (Elisabeth Moss) daughter, Hannah, who is known in Gilead as Agnes (Chase Infiniti). She’s being raised in upper crust Gilead society, tutored in a private girls’ school led by Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) for a potential prosperous husband, specifically one in the upper ranks of the military. But there’s a frosh girl in the Gilead faith, Daisy (Lucy Halliday), from the independent city of Toronto. She is known as a “Pearl Girl.” Aunt Lydia orders Agnes to mentor her. Unbeknownst to all, Daisy is a spy sent to infiltrate Gilead.
While Atwood’s Testaments novel continues 15 years after Handmaid’s Tale, the series leaps forward roughly three-to-five years. Littlefield tells us that there’s not a third novel planned in the series from Atwood.
Littlefield tells us that two more seasons are being planned for Testaments (a total of three altogether). When it comes to the future of the young women in Testaments, he teases, “If season one is an awakening, with knowledge and power comes responsibility. We look at our young women and say, ‘What are you going to do?’” Part of Season 2 per Littlefield has already been written with production eyed for late summer or early fall.
Halliday and Infiniti
When it came to casting of Chase Infiniti well before she broke out in Paul Thomas Anderson’s multi-Oscar winning One Battle After Another, Handmaid’s Tale actor O-T Fagbenle advised Littlefield “run, don’t walk” when it came to choosing the Indianapolis-born actress.
“Against hundreds of young women, she auditioned and it jumped out,” Littlefield says about Infiniti’s grit. “Everyone who saw that tape said, ‘That’s it, that’s Agnes.’ And so then it was just her desire. Chase could have sat out having done that movie and just said, ‘I’m only making feature films’…She fought for the role and boy, did she earn it.”
Meanwhile Lucy Halliday, a Scottish actress stood out with not only an interesting interpretation of Daisy, but, “She was an Atwood scholar. She just fascinated us.”
In putting together a murderer’s row of young actresses that also includes Rowan Blanchard, Isolde Ardies, Mattea Conforti and others, the amazing luck about assembling the Testaments cast was that there were no chemistry tests per Littlefield.
We also chat with the former President of NBC Entertainment about the current state of linear, as well as truisms in the TV business which he still believes in to this day (“Respect the audience…they’re very smart. Keep them guessing….Great content still breaks through.”).
And then there’s the sixth season of Fargo which Deadline hears is set in Texas.
“I don’t think I’m authorized to confirm or deny your rumor. Noah Hawley and I are committed to keeping this franchise going. We’re deeply connected for well over a decade to making this content. We might be in an old age home together, and we’re still going to leave the old age home and make Fargo if someone says they want it.
“We like to scare ourselves in our ambitions every year,” he adds.
Littlefield also tells us about the documentary he’s currently shooting about young gamers who are recruited to fly drones in the Ukraine war, a project that he’s in talks with Hulu and ABC News on.
“It’s a thematic of lost and found young men in America, young men in Europe and young men in the UK who responded to an ad on a sub-Reddit page for the Ukraine army. They feel left out. They feel forgotten in the world that we live in right now and yet they have a unique skill and that’s gaming.”
Our conversation with the producer whose Littlefield Company counts 163 Emmy nominations and 24 Emmy wins, is below:
