‘The Testaments’ Reveals First Look at ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Sequel Series Coming in 2026

The Testaments is ready to go back to Gilead.

Hulu’s highly anticipated sequel series to The Handmaid’s Tale got a first look and premiere month on Saturday, the news coming out of CCXP25 Brazil. The Testaments, based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 Booker Prize-winning sequel novel of the same name, will premiere April 2026 on Hulu and Disney+.

The first photos released from the series include early looks at the returning Aunt Lydia, played by The Handmaid’s Tale star Ann Dowd, as well as new characters played by Chase Infiniti, who steps into the role of Agnes/Hannah — the daughter to June Osborne, who was played by Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale — as well as the characters played by Lucy Halliday, Rowan Blanchard, Mattea Conforti, Isolde Ardies, Shechinah Mpumlwana and Birva Pandya. 

Halliday plays Daisy, a young Canadian teen whose life is turned upside down when she learns of her connection to the Republic of Gilead; Blanchard plays Shunammite, a pampered teen from a prominent Gilead family. Ardies plays Hulda, a guileless girl, full of excitement at the prospect of womanhood. Mpumlwana plays Jehosheba, a competitive classmate from a respected family. Pandya plays Miriam, a girl on the cusp of womanhood who struggles under the pressure of marriage season.

Here’s the official series synopsis: “The Testaments takes place in the dystopian theocracy of Gilead. Years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments is a coming-of-age story that finds a new generation of young women in Gilead grappling with the bleak future that awaits them. For these young women, growing up in Gilead is all they have ever known, having no tangible memories of the outside world prior to their indoctrination into this life. Facing the prospect of being married off and living a life of servitude, they will be forced to search for allies, both new and old, to help in their fight for freedom and the life they deserve.”

The Testaments is produced by MGM Television and created for television by showrunner and executive producer Bruce Miller, who created The Handmaid’s Tale and was showrunner for the first five seasons. He remained an executive producer for the final season while shifting gears to work on The Testaments. He also wrote the series finale, which was directed by Moss. The final scene brought to series full-circle with an ending Miller had always envisioned, where June ends the series speaking the words that opened the show.

The sequel series is executive produced by Warren Littlefield, The Handmaid’s Tale star/executive producer/director Moss, Steve Stark, Shana Stein, Maya Goldsmith, John Weber, Sheila Hockin, Daniel Wilson, Fran Sears and Mike Barker, who will also direct the first three episodes.

Mabel Li, Amy Seimetz, Brad Alexander, Zarrin Darnell-Martin, Eva Foote and Kira Guloien round out the cast. While Moss has not been confirmed among the cast, her June Osborne will be present over The Testaments given how The Handmaid’s Tale ended.

The Testaments centers on the young girls in Gilead who are training to be wives — and that includes Hannah (who has been renamed Agnes), the daughter who was ripped from June’s arms and taken into Gilead at the start of The Handmaid’s Tale. The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments author Atwood and Miller had explained in The Hollywood Reporter‘s oral history on The Handmaid’s Tale how Atwood’s sequel novel helped set the show’s ending on a different course.

Hannah is in Gilead when The Testaments begins its story. So The Handmaid’s Tale couldn’t end with June reuniting with her first-born daughter. Atwood had given Miller a small no-kill list midway through the series that included directives to leave June, her two daughters (Nichole, her youngest daughter, goes by Holly by the series’ end) and Aunt Lydia (Dowd) alive, the latter being the connecting character in the sequel.

The Handmaid’s Tale‘s season six co-showrunners Eric Tuchman and Yahlin Chang ended June’s tale with an eye towards Hannah’s story. In the series finale, June decides to go back into Gilead and never stop fighting to get her back. She leaves Holly behind with her mother (Cherry Jones). Moss hasn’t confirmed she’ll have an onscreen role. But Miller wanted to keep that hope alive for viewers.

“She threw herself back and she couldn’t walk away from her daughter, so June is still doing her job. She’s still doing what she was doing in The Handmaid’s Tale [along with] Luke [O-T Fagbenle] and Moira [Samira Wiley] — they’re still out there somewhere ringing the bell to get Hannah back,” the creator of both series told THR. “Is June influencing The Testaments? Absolutely. She’s out there. She’s out there trying to get Hannah back. Do we see her? I would love to see her. But let’s expand into how the people who survive are rebelling in all these different areas. It looks like Gilead is just rife with people who really hate it. So let’s see more of them.”

Atwood added, “If you’re an underground resistance fighter, you’re underground — that is the point. Nobody knows where you are. Because if they do, you’re going to be dead. June is always there, but in the background. And she turns up at the end of the book, as you will recall.” [Read book spoilers here.]

The Handmaid’s Tale left viewers with a victory in Boston. The Testaments novel opened several years after The Handmaid’s Tale book ended, but since the series continued well beyond the book’s timeline, the gap narrows between the two series.

“The Testaments in our world is four years after the end of our series,” Littlefield previously revealed to THR. “Aunt Lydia has a school for girls to prepare them for womanhood and life in a Gilead world. What’s so fascinating is that these young women have never known a world that’s not a Gilead world. That’s completely different from our June point of view that always was our rudder for The Handmaid’s Tale. They’re also teenagers. So there’s a rebelliousness — there’s attitude about everything.”

Miller has been developing The Testaments since 2023. The Testaments went into production six weeks after The Handmaid’s Tale finished filming.