The Handmaid’s Tale star O. T. Fagbenle heaps praise on Elisabeth Moss

The Handmaid’s Tale returned to Channel 4 for it’s fourth season on Sunday.

And O. T. Fagbenle heaped praise on his co-star Elisabeth Moss for her ‘incredible’ acting and directing as he promoted the show on Wednesday’s This Morning, and called her ‘a maestro’ of the industry.

The actor, 40, discussed how the actress, 38, not only stars as lead character June Osborne in the drama, but has also directed episodes in the current season and is an executive producer.

He gushed: ‘You know I imagine at some point someone was Quincy Jones or Salvador Dahli and think “this person is a genius”.

‘I work with Lizzie Moss, she’s a savant of television, her ability not just to act but her directing is incredible her understanding of the actors process visually.

‘She’s an executive producer not just a name. watching her is like watching a maestro, she’s just incredible!’

O. T. plays June’s husband Luke Bankole from before Gilead was established and she was forced into becoming a Handmaid, while June believed Luke had died it was later revealed he had managed to escape to Canada.

Teasing what was to come, he told Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield: ‘It’s kind of come out a bit earlier in the States and the reaction has been insane, they’ve switched things up this season.

‘They’ve had characters doing things you’d never imagine, characters meet other characters you wouldn’t imagine they’d meet, things like that.’

He went on: ‘I think June has always had this revolutionary, stand up to the way things are and make a change, you get to see her tear things apart in a way that’s mind-blowing and tragic.’

Filming for the fourth season had to be delayed amid the coronavirus crisis, and O. T. admitted he felt it was a ‘blessing’ they could go back to shoot even if it meant doing lots of tests.

He explained: ‘It was pretty weird, you have to wear a mask, we were having tests, so much testing, I think I had at least 300 tests!

‘But it was a blessing, other people haven’t been able to do that… we had a lot of gratitude and purpose.’

The dystopian tragedy series takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a brutal regime that replaced the United States government after a worldwide fertility crisis emerged. 

Since June was among the few remaining fertile women, she became a Handmaid named Offred in the Waterford home where she was routinely raped by Fred in order to conceive his child. She later escaped to Canada.