'The Handmaid's Tale' Adds Zawe Ashton for Season 4, Plus New Characters Revealed

The Handmaid’s Tale season four is coming in 2021 and a new cast member was just revealed!

Zawe Ashton, best known for her work in the Netflix projects Velvet Buzzsaw and Wanderlust and her work in Broadway’s Betrayal, is joining the cast for season four.

Series creator Bruce Miller told THR that Zawe “is going to play Moira’s girlfriend and an aid worker in Toronto.”

Bruce also talked about Mckenna Grace‘s role in the upcoming season. He said she “plays a young ‘wife,’ in the Gilead tradition. She’s so spectacular in the show. I’ve just been watching the first few episodes because I’m finally doing some editing, and she’s just wonderful. Watching her and [Elisabeth Moss] together, it’s great. June comes in contact with a lot of different people in the season, a lot more than usual, I would say.”

Also, Bruce said that Reed Birney is joining the show as “someone [from the world of] Gilead, who’s unexpectedly not Reed Birney-ish, but it’s been great to be able to build, and over episodes to build characters.”

Click inside for more details on the show’s new characters…

“Because June is moving through a new world, at least at the beginning she’s out and about. And who do you interact with, and who do you trust? So the guest players have been so important this season, and they’ve been for the first few episodes, so good,” Bruce added. “And honestly, they’ve had to travel extra distances, they had to stay in hotel rooms for two weeks. It’s not been easy, and they’re absolutely putting their A-plus work in, even though I know how difficult it has been for them to get there.”

Some other big news about The Handmaid’s Tale was announced last week!