Joseph Fiennes: This 'Handmaid's Tale' scene would've gone too far

The Handmaid's Tale doesn't shy away from physical or sexual violence, but one Season 2 scene was too much for actor Joseph Fiennes.

Fiennes spoke to Entertainment Weekly about a cut scene in which his character, Commander Fred Waterford, rapes his wife right after a hostile interaction in Canada.

“In episode 9, we had a moment where Fred was going to rape — after meeting Luke — rape Serena in a hotel room straight after, and it just didn’t track for me," Fiennes said. "I had to go out on a limb and refuse to do it because I felt that even though Fred is who he is, he’s human."

That's a tough distinction to make for a character who, in this season alone, beat his wife, raped his handmaid (beyond the usual requirement of Gilead), and eventually ordered Serena Joy's (Yvonne Strahovski) dismemberment when she proposed that women be allowed to read.

But it made sense in context, Fiennes explained.

"I think that he would be reeling from the interaction with Luke, and that suddenly the reality comes face to face with him and he would be digesting that and trying to understand it," he said, "and he wouldn’t necessarily be switched on by being in Canada in a new hotel and trying to heavily persuade his wife to do something that she wouldn’t want to do.”

It was a wise decision that Fiennes appealed for with “long emails and defending and pushing." Had the scene been included, we could have expected backlash for a gratuitous rape, something which Handmaid's has mostly avoided due to its tenuous subject matter, unlike, say Game of Thrones.

"It didn’t need a heavy scene to kind of suddenly push her over the edge,” Fiennes concluded after praising Strahovski's performance.