- Joseph Fiennes, aka Commander Fred Waterford of The Handmaid’s Tale, has spoken about the one scene he couldn’t do.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Fiennes admitted that he had pushed for a sexual assault scene to be cut from an episode in season two of the show.
“I guess in many ways, as abhorrent and nasty and evil as Fred is, I have to defend parts of him,” he said.
“It just didn’t track for me. I had to go out on a limb and refuse to do it because I felt that even though Fred is who he is, he’s human.
“And I think that he would be reeling from the interaction with Luke, and that suddenly the reality comes face to face with him, and he would be digesting that and trying to understand it, and he wouldn’t necessarily be switched on by being in Canada in a new hotel and trying to heavily persuade his wife to do something that she wouldn’t want to do.”
The actor said that he sent “long emails” pushing for the scene to be cut. Despite his reluctance to do this particular scene, Fiennes did say that he enjoys the challenge of dark content, concluding that: “It’s really about battling for human nuance within a very dark character.”
