‘It’s a gun, and it’s five centimetres from my face’: Mabel Li on the terror and pleasure of The Testaments

For the last few months, Mabel Li has been quietly terrifying in The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The 28-year-old NIDA graduate, who was nominated for a Logie in 2022 for most outstanding supporting actress in the SBS drama New Gold Mountain, dials in from New York to discuss the end of The Testaments and Aunt Vidala’s terrible staffroom etiquette with national TV editor Louise Rugendyke. (Warning, spoilers follow.)

Hello Mabel! What have you been doing?

I just got back from watching a show called Well, I’ll Let You Go [on Broadway]. It’s really good, I cried three times. It’s strong writing, a strong ensemble. I loved it.

So, I stuck with The Handmaid’s Tale all the way through, but it got really hard at the end. But I found The Testaments to be a complete breath of fresh authoritarian air. Is it your first big international production?

Yes, it’s the first overseas production that I’ve done.

How did you get involved? It’s a pretty good show in which to start your career overseas.

It came in my inbox, from my American managers, and I was like, “Yeah, I’ll try for that.” At the time, it was embargoed, so a lot of things were redacted and changed, but I had a feeling that it was for The Testaments. I auditioned for a character called Sister Vera, which was codename for Aunt Vidala. I got some feedback the following day, which was really exciting and shocking. And then I did another tape for it, and then a couple of weeks [later] I did my first call-back with all the producers and Bruce [Miller], the showrunner, and I met everyone, and that was really wild.

Did anyone tell you what they saw in you that was so Aunt Vidala?

I actually have no idea what they saw in me [laughing], but I know what they enjoyed about my tape. I remember Mike Barker, he’s an executive producer, and he directed quite a few of the episodes, he set up the show, he said there was something personal about it. He didn’t feel like the regime was over there, it felt deeply personal, and that intrigued him.

We don’t know much about Aunt Vidala. We know her original name was Vivian, and she worked as a teacher with Aunt Lydia. We know, from the flashback episode, she didn’t replace the coffee in the staffroom, so she had terrible workplace etiquette. Where did you build her from?

I read The Testaments when I got the show. I had read The Handmaid’s Tale, but I hadn’t read The Testaments. And then I read it twice or something, and made my notes and absorbed it all. And then I got the scripts, and they were really fun to read, and I took some things from the book, but then I had to put it down and go, “OK, I’m gonna have to kind of forge her on my own a bit.” I really went off that personal thing that they were drawn to [in my audition], and as we’re filming, I’m discovering more about her as I experience her in my body. Going back [in time] in episode six [the one set in pre-Gilead times, in the stadium] was super helpful. It informed everything, [especially] my character’s dynamic with Aunt Lydia, then also me and Mike discussed something traumatic in her past, and I played off that as the show goes on.

She’s so unreadable. You really don’t know what’s going on with her.

It’s ambiguous, and you’re kind of like, “Is she good? Is she bad? Does she believe, does she not?” It’s interesting.

Do you think that if Vivian had just replaced the coffee in the staffroom then Aunt Lydia wouldn’t have been so cranky? And then she wouldn’t have gone so willingly with Gilead’s soldiers and then started the Handmaid’s program …

That was the catapult [laughing]. It was a lot of coffee, and that’s why those men came in, they were like, “We can’t have this any more.”

You quickly get a few confronting scenes in The Testaments – a hand being cut off, the attack by Mayday and the flashback scene in the stadium – which one stayed in your body the most?

I think my answer is going to surprise some people because when you watch the show, you might think some of the punishment scenes or the flashback would be the most traumatic, but weirdly, and at risk of sounding like a psychopath, they were the sometimes fun and freeing scenes to play. Because, for me, the hardest scenes, and the scenes that were hardest to shake off over the culmination of five months of shooting, were the everyday scenes, because she’s a straight-jacketed character. There are lots of different coping strategies that she uses, but one of them is to truly numb her own reactivity, and how she would truly feel, [especially] because she’s lived a life before as well, and has come into this world against her own consent. I think she’s a really good performer. I also think she’s learned to numb a lot, and those were the things that I found – at the end of five months [shooting] – kind of excruciating.

So it’s like, “Oh, I can react to stuff now.”

Yeah, I can. Even though it’s painful, the epic stuff, at least she’s alive, you know? She’s reacting very reasonably.

What was it like to film that big flashback episode? It’s acting, but you’ve still got a hood on, your hands are tied and then you’re on your knees with a gun pointed at your head. On some level, that must be terrifying.

I didn’t need to act, which was great. There were hundreds and hundreds of background actors in that stadium, and the gun, to me, might as well have been a real gun. Even though it’s a prop, it’s a gun, and it’s five centimetres from my face. Sometimes I feel, as an actor, having a breakdown scene is a bit of a luxury. Because you get to go there [emotionally] and especially in a situation like that, I don’t need to push anything, I just need to react to what’s going on. When we shot that sequence, we shot that for like, maybe, a minimum six hours, just her [Ann Dowd], just her pointing the gun at me. And it was physically exhausting, but it was kind of a release. I didn’t feel like an emotional burden, but it was like more physical exhaustion.

Tell me about Aunt Vidala’s uniform. It’s a brown tunic – we know Aunt Lydia picked the fabric because it was rough – and it looks quite constricting, especially with your hair pulled back tight and your glasses as well.

The first time I put on the whole ensemble, I really did feel transformed. The costume is so neat, it’s tight and it’s neat, and it really restricts your movement, and the wool gives it a weight, so when you walk you feel a sense of power. I also think I’m one of the only women in Gilead allowed to have glasses. I don’t think we’ve ever seen that. I would only get the privilege of wearing glasses and being able to see because I need to read a couple of times a year [when the other women in Gilead don’t get to read much], so it was super fascinating.

And you smoke! There’s a lot of smoking that goes on generally in Gilead. I really thought it would have been banned.

I love that we get to smoke, and we get to drink a little bit of sherry, that’s fun.

And eat dumplings!

Yeah, what a combo! They’re just going all out, they’re smoking, they’re eating dumplings, and they’re going, “Nobody else knows about our stash.”

What was your relationship with Ann Dowd?

I’ve watched Ann on the screen for so many years, she’s a powerhouse actor, and we really bonded in episode six, I really felt it. And I think it’s mutual, like we sat there for days on end in the stadium, and we imagined and lived snippets of what our characters would really live, with all of these background actors in solidarity with the cast. She’s so fun to act across, she’s spontaneous, and we would improvise before the scene, before they would call action, and I loved that. She’s also from the theatre, and I’m from the theatre [Li has worked with the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and Belvoir Street Theatre].

Aunt Vidala and Aunt Lydia have a real power struggle going on. Who would you like to see win?

Obviously, I think Aunt Vidala should win – every man for himself in this world – but look, I’m so curious. They’re writing it [season two] right now. I want to know because I think where it ends in episode 10 is kind of tenuous. Aunt Vidala, her ambitions were really awakening this season. But then, the stuff that’s happening with the girls, with the dentist, Dr Grove [who sexually assaults some of the girls], it strikes a chord in her, and she turns a little bit. I’m really curious about where they take it, I mean, selfishly, as an actor, I just love whenever they make it bold.

Now you are on a break from The Testaments, what else have you got up your sleeve?

[A show] called Careless. It’ll be on Stan*. I had the best time with Richard Roxburgh. I play his and Robyn Malcolm’s daughter, and, man, we had the best time on set. It’s a starkly different character and world to The Testaments. I’m so happy I got to do that, and stretch a little bit after playing Aunt Vidala. [Otherwise], they’re gearing up for us to just go straight into season two [of The Testaments] as soon as possible, so I’m waiting for the date, and that’s fairly soon.

Have we lost you to overseas?

It’s such a privilege to be able to work overseas. I mean, it’s a privilege, period, to work as an actor. I love living in Australia, so as long as I can, I’d love to continue being based in Australia. I’m passionate about telling Australian stories. I kind of go where the work will take me, and where the meaningful work will take me.

The Testaments is now streaming on Disney+

*Stan is owned by Nine, the owner of this masthead.

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