Dowd and Moss starred as arch-antagonists on the dystopian Hulu hit for 9 years.

Ann Dowd reveals the text she got from *Handmaid’s Tale *costar Elisabeth Moss when Donald Trump was elected

Dowd and Moss starred as arch-antagonists on the dystopian Hulu hit for 9 years.

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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June 16, 2026 9:57 p.m. ET

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Elisabeth Moss on 'The Handmaid's Tale'; Donald Trump on June 3. Credit:

Sophie Giraud/Hulu; Shawn Thew/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty

- Ann Dowd is looking back on the encouraging text Elisabeth Moss sent her after Donald Trump was elected.

- The *Handmaid's Tale *costars were still in production on the literary adaptation's first season when the former businessman won the office in 2016.

- Dowd revealed that Moss sent her a Latin motto that's become synonymous with the show.

When times get tough, you look to your friends.

Ann Dowd got support from one of her closest costars, Elisabeth Moss, in the hours after Donald Trump's first election to the presidency in 2016.

The future Emmy winner was then still in production on the first season of *The Handmaid's Tale*, in which she starred as the villainous Aunt Lydia opposite Moss' heroine, June. A conservative strongman with authoritarian tendencies getting boosted to the highest office in the land eerily resonated with the themes of the series, which was adapted from Margaret Atwood's novel of feminist rebellion under a fascist dystopia.

Dowd looked back on that fateful day, which Moss redeemed with her message of resistance, on Tuesday's episode of Jesse Tyler Ferguson's *Dinner's On Me *podcast.

Elisabeth Moss and Ann Dowd in 'The Handmaid's Tale' season 2.

George Kraychyk/Hulu

"He had just been elected," Dowd recalled. "I remember when we were shooting early on... that night before he was elected, I remember thinking, 'This can't be. This is going in the wrong direction.' I literally went to bed thinking, 'I can't watch another'" program dedicated to the ballot count.

"I woke up, opened the door on the *New York Times* on the floor, announcing his win," Dowd continued. "So I texted Lizzie Moss and I said, 'What are we going to do? This can't be.' She wrote back, 'Don't let the bastards grind you down.'"

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Not only did Moss text Dowd one of the series signature lines, the one which its fierce resistance movement eventually coalesces around, but "she did it in Latin. That's what she wrote back."

Statue of Aunt Lydia on 'The Handmaid's Tale' spinoff 'The Testaments'; gold statue of Donald Trump in Miami in 2026.

Disney/Russ Martin; Ben Jared/PGA TOUR via Getty

"Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum" is a phrase that Atwood originated for her 1985 novel. Remarking on the phrase's takeoff in popular culture after appearing in the series, Atwood told *Time* in 2017, "I'll tell you the weird thing about it... It was a joke in our Latin classes. So this thing from my childhood is permanently on people's bodies."

*The Handmaid's Tale *ended up inspiring on-the-ground political activism, when in 2018, activists dressed in the red costumes worn by the story's "handmaids" caste to protest Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination hearing.

"Brett Kavanaugh is an extremist ideologue who, if confirmed to the Supreme Court, will take away women’s basic rights," they warned at the time.

You can watch Dowd's full appearance on the *Dinner's On Me *podcast above.

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