Cherry Jones, the Emmy award-winner of 24, has been announced in the role of Holly, mother of Offred (Elisabeth Moss), in the second season of Hulu’s Margaret Atwood adaptation.
She has been confirmed as appearing in the fourth episode of the upcoming series, but as it is still in production it is possible that she may be a season regular. It is also unclear as to whether she will continue to appear in flashbacks or if she will now feature in the present day storyline, but show runner Bruce Miller has said that her appearance has always been inevitable.
“June’s mother is a big character in the book and representative of an interesting kind of feminism that was seemingly more of that time,” he said when they were only midway through the show’s first season.
“June’s memories of her mother and her activism are very vibrant in the book, so we’ve been talking about her from day one of season one, and it just didn’t seem like enough time to do her justice. In season two, we mention her a little bit, but we just don’t want to short-shrift her story. It’s a story we want to tell — she was one of the most memorable characters.”
Moss, who also acts as the show’s executive producer, says Jones was her “fantasy choice”.
“She’s [a]terrific literary character who’s now going to come to life for the first time and so it was important to me who that was,” she said. “I sent her the script, she wrote me a lovely email back and she said yes almost immediately.”
Sydney Sweeney (Pretty Little Liars) and Marisa Tomei have also been confirmed for the second season, which returns to Hulu US with its first two episodes on 25th April. The season’s UK release on Channel 4 are still to be announced.
Watch the trailer for The Handmaid’s Tale season two below:
