Madeline Brewer Breaks Down Janine's Empowering New 'Handmaid's Tale' Journey
Over the course of three seasons of The Handmaid's Tale, Madeline Brewer's Janine has absorbed every blow Gilead has to offer. She's had her right eye gouged out of its socket for speaking up for herself in a society where women have no voice or ownership over their bodies. She’s tried to kill herself and her newborn baby to escape life as a slave and save the infant from being raised by her rapist. She’s been exiled to the radioactive Colonies to face certain death, then brought back to civilization to serve as a childbearing vessel once more. She's been beaten mercilessly for showing her vulnerabilities and standing in solidarity with her ally June (Elisabeth Moss), enduring smacks and thumps from her captor and teacher Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and even her fellow Handmaids. Frankly, Janine has been through hell.
But on Wednesday’s pivotal episode of the Hulu series, Janine, as Brewer puts it, "is not taking any more shit." In the previous episode, pregnant Ofmatthew violently attacked Janine after enduring weeks of ceaseless bullying for her role in the death of Frances (Ordena Stephens), June's daughter's Martha. Guardians shot Ofmatthew down after the outburst, and in the latest episode, June is confined to the unconscious woman's bedside for the duration of her pregnancy. Gilead is keeping Ofmatthew alive as a receptacle for her unborn baby, and June, consumed with her own rage, is determined to mercy-kill Ofmatthew and deny Gilead another child for its regime. June tries to get Janine, hospitalized with her own injuries, to go along with her plan, but for the first time in their friendship, Janine rebuffs June and condemns her for going too far. It's a turning point that reminds audiences of Janine’s inherent empathy toward women in peril, even if it comes from the resistance she has long supported.
Brewer opened up to BAZAAR.com about Janine’s journey toward empowerment in Season 3, what her pivot from a June-led resistance means for their solidarity, and finding moments of tenderness and hope in a bleak world—both on The Handmaid’s Tale and in Trump America.
Harper’s Bazaar: Janine has endured so much and still manages to find reasons to smile. Can you tell me about her mental state now, particularly after the events of Episode 9?
Madeline Brewer: Well, the first season she was obviously in her own little world, and there was a bit more lucidity during the second season. I think this season she’s really coming into her own about who she is in this world. I think she’s no longer going to let herself play a victim. She speaks up when she sees injustice happening like she does in Episode 8, when she tells June that she’s being mean [to Ofmatthew]. I think that her frustration and anger are starting to boil, a turning point that came after getting the shit kicked out of her twice. She’s just like, All right, no more Mr. Nice Guy. She didn’t go quite so far as June, but she’s just not going to take any more shit.
HB: I can see that where that’s happening, certainly when she confronts June both in Episode 8 and more aggressively in Episode 9. But there were other times this season, and certainly in previous seasons, where she almost seems like she had resolved herself to her own fate in this world.
MB: I don’t think that Janine has ever lost her resolve that this world can’t own her and will ever own her. In a lot of ways, she does become fearful and can be physically small sometimes, but that internal flame has never been extinguished and it’s getting a little bit more powerful.
HB: That sense of empowerment has also led to Janine standing up to June, her longtime ally, and complicating their newly-strained relationship. There is solidarity when Janine conspires with June and the other Handmaids to bully Ofmatthew after she gets the Martha killed and jeopardizes June’s chances of ever seeing Hannah again. But in Episode 9, Janine dissents from that uniformed front by showing empathy toward Ofmatthew on her deathbed. Has Janine realized that the resistance, which has largely been led by June, contradicts her own sensibility?
MB: I think Janine has a unique view in that she has almost literally been in the same position as Ofmatthew when she was also dying on a hospital bed. Luckily Janine pulled through, but there was definitely a time in Gilead when there were people who wanted Janine dead for endangering the life of her child. Janine has a unique level of empathy for Ofmatthew that obviously June doesn’t have because her empathy toward Ofmatthew is clouded by her own story. I think Janine ultimately feels for Ofmatthew and understands what it’s like to feel hated and like an outcast. Janine has been a good friend to June through the entire series. They’ve had a close relationship, a strange relationship. But June is flipping a little bit and if anybody knows flipping from reality, it’s Janine. I think when she sees this happening to June, she’s like, Hey, get back here. June has saved Janine’s life over and over and over again and now this is a unique moment for Janine to say, Hey, something’s wrong here.
HB: When do you think that realization started happening for Janine? In the episode right before, even though Janine does tell June she’s being mean when they were all ganging up on Ofmatthew, she still participates in the group’s bullying of her. At that point, Janine is still very much in solidarity with June’s actions.
MB: I think that [shift] happens in Episode 9. After June is being tortured and stuck in Ofmatthew’s hospital room for days and days and days on end, Janine sees that June’s about to take a drastic measure [when she draws a knife to kill Ofmatthew]. But I think Janine has been worried for some time. June is a little out of control. I don’t personally want to say that June is being selfish, but I know that Janine feels that June is being selfish. The whole reason the girls only start bullying Ofmatthew—well, yes, she got Martha killed and she isn’t really sorry—is that Martha was protecting June’s daughter. Now we’re ruining the life of this girl who complicated things for June. It’s not because of any moral standpoint on June’s part. It’s because now she doesn’t have that throughline to her daughter. I think Janine sees a lot more than anybody thinks she does.
HB: That’s become more apparent. You were talking about empathy, which you said is especially inherent in Janine because of everything she’s been through. I see a glimmer of it in her relationship with Aunt Lydia, particularly in Episode 9 when she gifts her with a fancy new eye patch. We’ve seen Aunt Lydia do some nasty, violent things to Janine, but then there is this moment between them when Janine seems genuinely happy. Can you talk about their relationship and how it reflects Janine’s journey this season?
MB: There is obviously an abuse dynamic. Aunt Lydia is in some ways like a really bad boyfriend to Janine. She can be totally horrible to her, but when she’s sweet, Janine feels so special and loved and cared for, which makes her keep coming back. I feel like if someone treats you in a special way—especially in this world where everyone dresses the same and they are so obviously just walking wombs—it makes you feel like a cut above the rest. You really take that to heart, and I think that’s what Janine does. She is also so fragile. All she ever really wanted was to be accepted and loved and Aunt Lydia offers that.
But she’s also a bit of a punching bag for Aunt Lydia. Aunt Lydia can take her bullshit out on Janine and Janine will take it and come right back. So it’s a really unique dynamic. Janine knows how sweet Aunt Lydia can be, and there’s a feeling of Stockholm Syndrome there. I also think it comes through because I just love Ann Dowd so dearly, so it’s almost impossible to not feel the love in those scenes. She just gets Janine on a different level. She understands her and knows how to talk to her. We also see in Aunt Lydia’s backstory that she’s used to dealing with maybe a misfit kind of mother, and that’s who Janine is.
HB: You compared their relationship to a domestic abuse/bad boyfriend scenario, which I think is spot on. But I also wonder about a maternal comfort for Janine in their relationship, albeit an equally unhealthy one.
MB: There absolutely is a nurturing maternal [element]. I think young women, or women in general, are always seeking their mother’s approval in some capacity. That’s definitely what Janine does with Aunt Lydia. She’s always seeking her approval and wants to be the most devout and obedient member of this society. It’s not for any other reason except that she wants to feel close to Aunt Lydia.
HB: In the midst of these very fleeting moments of tenderness, we hear Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth,” which is one of the happiest songs ever. It’s such an interesting choice on a series that constantly uses music to confront or support the messages in the storyline. Do you think that Janine adapts a similar sense of happiness as a coping mechanism?
MB: I think, especially in the first season, Janine’s coping mechanism has always been to smile through the pain—imagine the world you want and live in it. That is a core part of who she is in this world. If you believe hard enough that something is good, and that good things will happen and are happening, then you can just exist in that. That’s clearly not the case [in reality], but that’s where Janine lives. That’s her world.
HB: How do you as a woman and an actress on a series with such bleak storylines cope with everything going on in our real world right now in terms of women’s rights?
MB: My personal feeling with what happens on the show and some of the parallels with what’s happening in the world, and specifically in our country, is that it’s exhausting. It sends me into a paralyzing panic at times. But it is actually a bit of an outlet to get some of those feelings out through the work and recognize that as much as I think there [are] elements in place [in the real world] that I believe were probably already in place at the very early stages in Gilead, we are not yet in Gilead and we have to do the work to ensure that we never get there.
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