Every Character in ‘The Testaments’ Explained: Meet the New Generation Shaking Up Gilead

Gilead is back, and this time it looks different. ‘The Testaments,’ Hulu’s long-anticipated sequel to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ arrived with its first three episodes on April 8, 2026, bringing with it a wave of fresh faces, a YA-inflected tone, and an entirely new lens through which to examine one of television’s most harrowing fictional worlds. The series is based on Margaret Atwood’s novel of the same name and serves as a narrative continuation to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ which ran from 2017 through 2025.

Rather than centering on the Handmaids the original series made iconic, this Hulu sequel has shifted its gaze to the daughters of Gilead’s elite, young women being groomed for wifehood inside a brutal preparatory school. The choice to lean into a school setting gives the show a distinctly young-adult texture, where coming-of-age tropes mingle with Gileadean bleakness to reveal new facets of a state built on male supremacy. Here is everything you need to know about who’s who in ‘The Testaments.’

The Leads: Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday Anchor the ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Sequel

Agnes MacKenzie, played by Chase Infiniti, is about 16 years old and appears to lead an idyllic life inside Gilead, with a top Commander father, two warm Marthas named Rosa and Zilla providing stability, and close friendships forged at her preparatory school.

What viewers familiar with ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ will recognize is that Agnes is not who she appears to be. She is June Osborne’s eldest daughter Hannah, who was taken from her mother as Gilead rose to power.

Infiniti, 25, made her feature-film debut in the Best Picture-winning ‘One Battle After Another,’ playing Willa, the daughter of Leonardo DiCaprio and Teyana Taylor’s vigilante characters.

She also appeared in the Apple TV limited series ‘Presumed Innocent’ alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. The role of Agnes is arguably the biggest of her still-young career, and early reviews suggest she delivers.

Daisy is a newcomer to Gilead who arrives appearing to be a new convert of the Pearl Girl missionaries, after growing up in Canada. She is played by Lucy Halliday, who brings an outsider’s sharp clarity to Gilead’s suffocating rituals. Halliday, 22, is a Scottish actress who earned acclaim and a Scottish BAFTA award for her role in the lesbian drama ‘Blue Jean,’ and later appeared in the musician biopic ‘California Schemin’ directed by James McAvoy.

Aunt Lydia’s New Generation of Gilead Girls

Agnes attends Aunt Lydia’s preparatory school alongside a circle of classmates who wear deep purple uniforms as “Plums,” marking them as teenagers not yet eligible for marriage but firmly on course for wifely duties. Each girl in that circle represents a distinct shade of complicity and resistance, and the ensemble has drawn considerable praise.

Becka, played by Mattea Conforti, is the first of the group to get her period but the least excited about marriage, and Agnes shares an especially close bond with her. Conforti is a particular standout in the series, serving as something of a lynchpin in the drama’s second half.

Shunammite, played by Rowan Blanchard, is described as a pampered teen from a prominent Gilead family whose status affords her a certain level of respect and power among her peers.

Shunammite plays the queen bee role, brash and bossy and far less sophisticated than she pretends to be, while sweet and awkward Hulda, played by Isolde Ardies, is often the target of her ribbing.

Blanchard offers some surprisingly satisfying comedic moments beneath Shunammite’s catty one-liners. The dynamic between these four young women is where the series finds much of its emotional pulse.

Ann Dowd’s Returning Role and the New Aunts of the Sequel Series

Ann Dowd, 70, reprises her role as Aunt Lydia, the high-ranking Aunt responsible for the instruction and indoctrination of women inside Gilead’s patriarchal system, who now runs the preparatory school that Agnes and Daisy attend.

It is a reprisal that carries significant weight given how central Lydia was to ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ The sequel series implies she has changed over time and will call into question just how much she ever truly believed in Gilead’s mission.

Mabel Li plays Aunt Vidala, described as a stern disciplinarian and the heir-apparent to the women’s sphere of Gilead. Zarrin Darnell-Martin, a Canadian actress known for appearances in ‘Ginny and Georgia’ and ‘Fellow Travelers,’ plays Aunt Gabbana, a firm proponent of Gilead values who serves as Aunt Vidala’s right-hand. Both Li and Eva Foote, who also plays a newly introduced Aunt, bring the requisite vulnerability beneath their stern exteriors.

Supporting Players Rounding Out the ‘Testaments’ Cast

Agnes’s icy stepmother Paula is played by Amy Seimetz, positioned as an adversary rather than a nurturer in the girl’s home life. Seimetz is a multihyphenate talent known for ‘The Killing,’ ‘Sweet Tooth,’ ‘Alien: Covenant,’ and ‘Pet Sematary,’ and she co-created the TV adaptation of ‘The Girlfriend Experience’ and directed two episodes of the 2024 reboot of ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith.’

Brad Alexander plays Garth, a young Commander who becomes involved in the personal lives of the girls he is sworn to protect. Alexander is a British model and actor known for playing Edward on season 4 of Netflix’s ‘You’ and for appearing in the series ‘Surface’ and ‘Lynley.’ Kira Guloien, known for ‘Women Talking’ and ‘Gen V,’ plays Rosa, a Martha and servant who works for a Commander in Gilead.

On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, ‘The Testaments’ currently holds an 88% approval rating based on 51 critic reviews, with the critics consensus praising the show as a slow-burning world builder featuring an excellent cast of fresh talent. Creator Bruce Miller, who also helmed its predecessor, has remained loyal to the broad strokes of Atwood’s novel while simultaneously taking some surprising, dramatic swings that vary from the source text. If the performances of this assembled cast are any indication, the next generation of Gilead’s story is in capable hands. Who among this new ensemble do you think is most likely to become the breakout character that defines ‘The Testaments’ the way Elisabeth Moss defined ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’?