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The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Episode 7 featured an especially emotional scene for Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski. June and Serena find themselves stranded in No Man’s Land, and June coaches Serena through the birth of her son. Still, Moss says there’s one scene from season 3 that was even more intense to film.

[SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers ahead for The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Episode 7, “No Man’s Land.”] 

Elisabeth Moss attends The Handmaid's Tale event during the 2022 PaleyFest NY at Paley Museum on October 10, 2022 in New York City. She has short blonde hair and wears a black leather jacket.
Elisabeth Moss | John Lamparski/Getty Images

Elisabeth Moss and Yvonne Strahovski filmed a barn childbirth scene in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ Season 5

In The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5, June and Serena find themselves in a desperate situation together. Serena accompanies her guardian to execute June in No Man’s Land. However, when she is handed the gun to kill June, she turns the gun on her guardian, and June drives the both of them away in his car.

Serena lands the car in a ditch and goes into labor. Then, June coaches her through her son’s birth in a nearby barn. It’s an incredibly intense scene, with June and Serena pressing their foreheads together as Serena is in labor.

“I really wanted to do that moment where Serena is very physically leaning on June, and it’s very intimate, and have my arms around her,” Yvonne Strahovski said while speaking with Entertainment Weekly. “And I just thought that would be so cool to see these two women in that relationship, have that physical relationship, especially after all five seasons, and how we got here today and how complex that would be.”

Moss says this scene from season 3 was even more intense

The Handmaid’s Tale actor Elisabeth Moss says there’s one scene that was even more intense than Serena’s childbirth. In The Handmaid’s Tale Season 3, June is forced to take a trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in public prayer for the return of her daughter Nichole to Gilead. At the end of the episode, June stands in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It’s in bad shape and missing its head and arm.

She is soon joined by Serena, and the pair get into a heated argument. Serena previously helped June get Nichole out of Gilead, but now she is regretting that decision and campaigning for Nichole’s return. Serena insists that she is doing this because she loves Nichole. “You can’t love! You don’t know how!” June yells at her.

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“We were shooting a scene in front of the Lincoln Memorial,” Moss told TVLine. “I mean, it was the most unbelievable opportunity. We were so honored to be there. It was quiet, and we had it to ourselves, and it was early in the morning, and it was an incredibly moving experience. It was an incredibly moving scene, and Yvonne and I had such a blast doing it. And it was our breakup scene. We call it our breakup scene,” she continued.

Moss and Strahovski both have children of their own

As for Moss’ explanation about why the Lincoln Memorial scene was more intense than the barn scene, the actor joked to TVLine that she and Strahovski have “both done it before” in regards to childbirth.

“It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but it was also two people inside in a studio and an actress that I love and a friend and somebody that I very much admire and I’m close to,” she continued. “So definitely wasn’t the most challenging thing we did this season.”

Don’t miss new episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 Wednesdays on Hulu.

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