Chase Infiniti is too humble to use this vernacular, but prepare to be sick of her (in the best way possible). After scoring Actor and Golden Globe nominations for her first lead role in a feature film for One Battle After Another this past Oscar season, Infiniti has now received an Emmy nomination for her first lead role in a TV series (and only her second TV role ever after appearing in David E. Kelley’s Presumed Innocent), which, at the very least, means more eye-catching red carpet fashion from her along the campaign trail.
“I love that I get to wear pieces of art, literally, to all of these events, so I’m excited to have it keep going,” says Infiniti on the morning that her nomination for her portrayal of Agnes MacKenzie in Hulu’s The Testaments was announced. “[My stylists, Wayman + Micah, are] the ones who create these incredible, catered looks for everything that we want to do, and they get me so well. I credit all of my fashion press to them because that is not me.”
Wardrobe is a defining status symbol in Gilead, the setting of the dystopian sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale based on Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel The Testaments. When we first meet Agnes (named Hannah Bankole in the original series), she’s layered in purple garments, establishing her as a plum, a girl who has not yet reached menstruation. When she gets her period in episode two, she’s elevated to a green, the color she later wears to signify her eligibility for marriage during a debutante-style ball where she and her peers are paraded before much older commanders seeking young, fertile brides.
Chase Infiniti
Photographed by Guy Aroch
“It feels almost like a uniform,” says Infiniti of the modest, structured dresses she and her castmates wore. “You feel like you’re ready to go to battle, in a way. You feel the restriction that Gilead has on these girls. And those initial feelings of restriction, of being overly aware of how you’re moving in these costumes, and in the world, and also the level of posture and attitude that these girls have to have — they really have to make sure that they’re the most well-presented girls in this society — you feel that from the second that you put on those costumes.”
In episode two’s “Perfect Teeth,” Agnes not only symbolically loses her innocence, it’s stripped of her when, during a visit to the dentist, Dr. Grove (Randal Edwards) — her best friend Becka’s (Mattea Conforti) father — touches her breasts. When Becka, who’s secretly in love with Agnes, later learns that her dad molested her and another young plum, Hulda (Isolde Ardies), she stabs him to death and runs to Agnes’ home in a bloody nightgown in the middle of the night to suggest they run away together. Agnes tells her parents, believing they’ll help Becka. Instead, Becka’s arrested by the Eyes and placed in a women’s detention center.
“The tipping-point episodes were the hardest ones to do in my mind, specifically episode nine, when Agnes realizes that Gilead is not able to protect Becka,” says Infiniti. “And the moments where Agnes sees her world collapsing and crumbling in front of her, outside of what she’s been promised. Those are the harder moments because so much of the season is a gradual build toward episode 10, and I wanted to make sure that I got them right.”
According to the Television Academy, Infiniti did. The actress garnered the sole nomination for The Testaments in a cast filled out by four-time Emmy nominee and 2017 supporting actress winner for The Handmaid’s Tale Ann Dowd, who returns as Aunt Lydia, the militaristic matriarch of the elite girls preparatory school; newcomer Lucy Halliday, an undercover Mayday operative named Daisy who enters Gilead as a pearl girl; and Elisabeth Moss, the 2017 lead actress in a drama Emmy winner who accumulated another three nods for her turn as June Osborne, a leader in the Mayday resistance mission and the biological mother of Agnes — a fact Agnes learns in the Testaments finale that foreshadows her resolve to fight against the rigid theocracy.
Infiniti as Agnes MacKenzie in Hulu’s The Testaments.
Steve Wilkie/Disney
“She’s literally the encyclopedia of the Handmaid’s Tale universe, so getting to have her be there on set and be there as a producer, she made herself readily available for both me and Lucy and for the rest of the girls to ask any kind of question that we had,” says Infiniti of Moss’ guest-starring return. “That’s something that I’m eternally grateful for because getting to hear the process of living in Gilead from somebody who’s been doing it for so long in that world was such a wonderful thing to have access to.”
Still, shedding the harsh realities of life as a young girl without agency in Gilead was a practice Infiniti had to master both for her character and herself. “[Agnes] has a lot of love and a lot of light in her core. That is something that even from that first script that I read of The Testaments, I gravitated toward, and I really wanted to make sure I took care of because it’s also something that you can feel within The Handmaid’s Tale,” she says.
As for the real-world connection to the plight of the women and girls in the series, she adds, “I definitely have more thoughts about the world of Gilead when I see something happen that doesn’t seem, unfortunately, too far from reality. That’s the thing that I think about the most outside of the show, and the thing that terrifies me the most is there are things that happen in the show that are happening in real life and are continuing to happen in real life, both in our own country and culture, and also globally.”
Receiving acclaim for those realistic portrayals still doesn’t feel real to Infiniti. “I can’t believe it, honestly. It’s an honor in general because I know that Agnes and the character of Hannah is so beloved, but, also, I feel so grateful because there’s no way that I could have done even half the work that I did on that show without my cast and my crew,” says the Emmy first-timer, who’s looking forward to fostering and forging new relationships with her fellow nominees.
“I met Carrie Coon for the first time a couple months ago, and I’m a massive fan of hers, so I’m excited to see her and be in company with other people who are nominated, like Zendaya,” says Infiniti. “I met Rhea Seehorn at the Golden Globes luncheon, and I’ve had the wonderful honor of getting to see her at all of these different events. So getting to see the friends that I’ve made already and also meet new ones is something that I’m really looking forward to. I feel so grateful that I can call them friends and companions because I truly do look up to them so much.”
This story first appeared in a July stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
