Samira Wiley has “a very strong opinion” on how she wants The Handmaid’s Tale to end for her fan-favorite character, Moira Strand. “I really, really, really want Moira to end this thing with some love,” the Emmy Award winning star told HollywoodLife EXCLUSIVELY, while promoting The Gratitude Project documentary premiering at the Tribeca Festival in June.
“She almost had a girlfriend last season,” Samira, 35, added of Moira, who is currently living in Canada and free of Gilead in the hit Hulu series, “but some stuff went down and that didn’t work out. I’m like, dang, the girl is unlucky.”
“She’s been through so much, especially with all the PTSD and everything,” Samira told us. “I think it will be really lovely for her to just find some easy, nice love in her life, and something that’s not complicated.”
The Handmaid’s Tale left off with June (Elisabeth Moss) reuniting with Moira, as well as her husband Luke (O.T. Fagbenle) and her daughter Nichole, in Canada. Season 5, which is currently filming, will explore more of the reunion between Moira and June that fans — and Samira herself — had been waiting so long for.
“It’s the first time since season one that I felt like I really had my partner back. Except for she’s not the same person,” Samira said. “And we really see their weird struggle and relationship last season. And this season, it’s more of trying to figure out between Moira and June who they are to each other now, and what exactly, as me, as Moira, do I believe?”
“We saw so much last season that June is so gung-ho ready to kill everybody, and Moira was like, ‘Hold on, we got a baby to take care of, calm down,’ ” Samira added. “So really, it’s trying to figure out how to fight Gilead from within Canada. And how do they do those things differently? And also is it possible to fight Gilead from within Canada, or is that impossible? And if that isn’t possible, then what’s the next step?”
Samira teamed with One A Day to produce The Gratitude Project, featuring real stories from individuals who use regular acts of self-gratitude as a tool for bettering themselves, inside and out. The Orange Is the New Black alum, who has a 1-year-old daughter with her wife Lauren Morelli, told HL that creating the project was “a dream come true” and taught her to be grateful for her body as a diabetic. “It really showed me different parts of my life that I hadn’t really examined in a while,” Samira shared of the documentary. “And showed me how far I’ve come in my own personal gratitude journey.”