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FlashForward’s Joseph Fiennes has been cast as the Commander in Hulu’s adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s classic SF novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

A founding father of Gilead and powerful, high-ranking official, Commander Waterford rules the household where Offred (Elisabeth Moss) is a handmaid.

Bruce Miller’s 10 part screen version, is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism that treats women as property of the state. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred is a Handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.

Reed Morano will direct and executive produce the first three episodes, which start shooting in Toronto later this year.