Based on the roles she played both on television and on the big screen the last thing you probably want to do is get on Ann Dowd’s bad side. Especially if you were a frequent viewer of HBO’s “The Leftovers,” which rapped its third and final season last month, or have gotten hooked on Hulu’s masterful “The Handmaid’s Tale” that just released its final episode of the season.
On Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s “The Leftovers,” Dowd played Patti, a member of the Guilty Remnant, an anarchist group who, in the show’s first season, come to blows with Kevin (Justin Theroux), a small town sheriff trying to help his community deal with the mysterious disappearance of many of their loved ones. In the second season she reappeared to Kevin as either a manifestation of his subconscious or a spirit meant to haunt him (take your pick) and was seemingly vanquished during a pivotal moment of the series. Surprisingly, she returned in the second to last episode of the final season, “The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin Brother)” to help guide Kevin through an alternative realm of his own making (maybe).
As Aunt Lydia in Bruce Miller’s impressive adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Dowd is a stern taskmaster in charge of the well-being of a select group of handmaids. In a world where birth rates have dropped to infinitesimal levels, the United States has been overthrown by an authoritarian government which is forcing the remaining fertile women — the handmaids — to act as surrogates for the elite who are now in power. Lydia first breaks the women as they arrive from the “modern” world (talk back and you might lose a valuable body part) and then mothers them from the government commanders who often treat them like slaves.
This past weekend Dowd took some time to chat about both roles and, as always, was eloquent and passionate about the amazing characters she’d had the chance to portray over the past year.
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Gregory Ellwood: Hi Ann, you’re shooting something right now, right?
Ann Dowd: Yes. I’m in North Carolina, in Wilmington, which is lovely. We’re shooting the second season of “Good Behavior” which stars Michelle Dockery who’s fabulous and Juan Botto and Terry Kinney. It’s just a blast. It’s so good. Everybody involved is wonderful. It’s a great pleasure.
You’e had a number of incredible roles over the past year, but I want to talk about both your return to “The Leftovers” and your work on “The Handmaid’s Tale.” For the former, how much notice did you have and did Damien or Tom give you any sort of tease about Patti’s return before you got to Australia?
Well, it’s a funny thing. I got a little bit of notice because I thought Patti was gone. Well, we thought first season gone but then [she] came back for the second season, which was such a surprise and a thrill. Although Damon had said sometime after wrapping the first season that he thought she would be coming back. Then second season, it was over and I had a lovely email from Damon saying what he felt about the character and so on. Really an end. Then when they got the notice of the pick up for the third season, I was included in the cast letter and Damon doesn’t make mistakes. So, I thought “O.K, is this a mistake by chance or no? Is it possible that Patti is going to be somehow involved in season three, which because of the nature of the material and the closeness to Justin and to the story, the brilliance of the story I thought that would be so wonderful to finish in a third season.” So, I wrote to Damon and I said, “I’m thinking you don’t make mistakes, but is it just possible? I mean what’s going on?” And he said, “Patti will be in one episode toward the end and it will be in Australia.” That’s all I knew. I tell you, I had no desire to find out anymore until he was ready to send it to me. I got the script along with everybody else, which I believe was three weeks before we shot. I was taking my girls to college and the next day flew right away to Australia.
When you first read it what did you make of what was going on in the episode? If that’s a strange question to ask.
No, not in the least, especially with this material. Once you begin to realize working with Damon and with Tom, the imagination is boundless, quite frankly. Whatever comes up, I know makes entire sense. Not consciously. It’s not a linear story by any stretch of the imagination. He knows the character so well, so whatever he writes it’s very challenging to shoot because you could rehearse it for two weeks. Do you know what I mean? And get to the bottom of what’s going on but of course, you don’t have that when you are shooting. I knew she was real, meaning, real meaning right. The character was still the same human being that I knew. The beauty of pain of the way this relationship between these two people played out, I just loved so much. I had no idea it would take place the way it did. I thought it was a brilliant choice. Just really extraordinary. It made sense to me on a deep level, although if someone said, “Could you talk about it?” I don’t know that I could put coherent sentences together but it made tremendous sense to me. I’ve been asked with the second season, “Were you a ghost?” It’s funny, I never needed clarity on that, not because I could name it myself, which really I couldn’t, all I knew was that she was present with [Kevin]. Period. With Damon, he will answer any question you have. He will answer it thoroughly. But if you don’t want to know, he won’t tell you. Do you know what I’m saying? He doesn’t fill your head with information. It’s really brilliant. Lets you find your way. You have a question. He answers immediately.
In this episode, Patti is a defense secretary and Kevin is president in an alternate world where the Guilty Remnant have ascended to a political party and won the White House. What did you think her motivations were? Were they sinister?
Remember, she was a member of the Remnant. So her whole thing would be to tear it all down. And in this alternate reality that he’s gone to when he dies, or whatever it is, she’s going to use him to create nuclear [armageddon]. Here’s how I experienced it. They are an unlikely couple if you will. Not a romantic couple of sexual couple, there are extremely different directions in season one. However, when we shot that last scene, Justin and I both came away with the same feeling. Which is that it was a love story. Meaning if you were going to be with someone, who sees you for exactly who you are. For whatever reason, the armor comes down. The fear, the ugliness in each of us was apparent to the other. The way we chose to hide, and when I say we I mean the characters chose to hide from their lives. In this case, something kind of miraculous happens because it’s very hard to achieve that. I loved my husband for 32 years and been married to him. I know I hide parts of myself, just because you don’t want anyone … do you know what I’m saying?
Yeah.
When you find someone and they just came together in that way, and that to me is the genius of the writing. They realized even if they couldn’t consciously say it, we understand one another. And that’s a very haunting thing, and it’s a very antagonistic thing. It’s like, “Get the fuck away from me.” But the truth is there and so the second season I remember writing to Damon because Patti was saying things like. “You know, I told you not to tell her” meaning, “Nora told you. Told you she wouldn’t go for it, don’t tell her you’re hearing my voice, you’re seeing me, don’t do it And don’t go and tell your daughter”. And of course he does go and tell Nora (Carre Coon) and she leaves. So I said to Damon “Am I trying to help them in the relationship, do I want them to be together what is Patti up to”? And Damon said, “No, no she doesn’t believe in relationships and she doesn’t even know why she’s there. As far as she knows she killed herself and that was the end of it. But now she’s showing up in a truck that he’s driving. She’s present in his life, she doesn’t know why. She’s putting the pieces together as they go along.”
Interesting. So, I know since you didn’t write the character you can only conjecture from playing her. What do you think her reaction would be after the final episode where it’s sort of revealed what happened to all the missing people. Cause according to Nora it’s not really the end of the world. Something just happened where they went to another earth. They went to another dimension or something. How would she react?
Do you think it’s true what Nora is saying?
I did, I took as the truth. Did you not?
Beautiful, guess the question was put to Damon and I loved his answer.“I want to believe it. I want to believe her.” And it’s interesting I don’t know. But to just follow your original question. So, what Kevin does for her in the second season, in the drowning of her in the well, she says to him “I had a chance to get away from the abuse, I had a chance to let go of this grief and this horror and to do well by myself for myself.” And so once she admits that to him, her life if you will spiritual and physical which is already gone is complete. She’s scared to let go, he says “I will help you”. And he does so. And so what this whole episode is in the third season is Patti repaying the favor. And the way she does it is to say “Listen, this is the place you keep going to when you’re afraid”. “You keep going to this death…you are escaping your life. You are not squaring off with your love for Nora, whatever it may be you are using this world to escape to. So here’s what I’m going to do for you honey, were going to blow it up. And when we blow it up, you’re never going to be able to come back, you’re going to have to live in your life.” And that is the gift she returns to him.
I had not thought of it that way. I love that actually.
The beauty of that story, who in the world would come up with that. Damon and Tom. It made total sense to me. I had very few question about what the hell that was going on in that episode. Yes, bizarre as it was, it made entire emotional sense to me.
Let’s talk about “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In a year of amazing television, it might be the best thing I’ve seen.
Oh, it’s so beautifully done. Oh my god.