A “Ballsy Email” Changed Everything For Lucy Halliday

When The Testaments star Lucy Halliday watched the pilot episode for the first time, the 22-year-old actor was sitting elbow to elbow with The Handmaid’s Tale creator herself. “I remember being so excited. And then, the second the opening credits came up, I just went, ‘Oh, no,’” she tells Bustle over Zoom from her sunny London flat. “It suddenly dawned on me that this was the Margaret Atwood.”

Luckily, Atwood loved the episode, much to the relief of Halliday, who has been a fan of the award-winning author since childhood. In Hulu’s The Testaments, set 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale, the actor plays Daisy, a Canadian teenage rebel, alongside Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd) and Agnes (Chase Infiniti), as they try to dismantle the disintegrating Gilead from within.

“I really admire [Daisy’s] tenacity and fire, and she’s very sharp-witted, and she knows what she wants, and that really drew me to her,” Halliday says. “I do think Daisy’s cooler than me.”

Although she grew up performing in youth theater in her hometown of Paisley, just outside of Glasgow, Scotland, Halliday didn’t always consider acting her top priority. She was studying medicine at the University of Glasgow while secretly “kicking [herself]” for not giving acting a real shot. That is, until she serendipitously came across a casting call for the 2022 indie film Blue Jean on Instagram.

“They wrote a very detailed description of Lois, and I didn’t match any of it, but I sent a very ballsy email to the casting director being like, ‘I am perfect,’” she recalls. “I’ve since been told no one believed me, but they let me audition. So I taped that day, did a chemistry read the next week, and then the week after we were filming.”

Halliday’s performance as Lois, a lesbian teenager who threatens to out her closeted teacher, earned her a Scottish BAFTA and put her on the map, leading to a role in James McAvoy’s California Schemin’ and eventually to Toronto, Canada, where she filmed The Testaments.

There, she instantly built a rapport with her co-star Infiniti, who lived just a 15-minute walk away. While Halliday worked hard to shed her warm Scottish lilt for Daisy’s American accent, she says Infiniti did her best to sabotage her.

“The phrase I found the hardest to say was ‘Pearl Girl,’ specifically, ‘proper Pearl Girl.’ And I had to say that a lot, unfortunately, because I am a Pearl Girl,” she says, referring to the missionary group recruiting others to come to Gilead, whom Daisy uses to gain access to the country under false pretenses. “Whenever I had to say it, Chase would be in my ear, trying to do a Scottish accent. I was like, ‘You are setting me up for failure here.’”

If anything, The Testaments sets up Halliday with a world of opportunities. Though she misses her favorite indie cinema, The Glasgow Film Theatre, she is dreaming of working on London’s West End, and she’s not taking anything off the table.

“I don’t know if anyone would want to hear me do musicals. I think I could do the dancing bit. I’m not tone deaf, but I’m not Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried,” she says, “So, I’ll start [with a] play and see how it goes.”

Learn more about Halliday in the Bustle Booth questionnaire below.

In The Bustle Booth

What’s your coffee order?

Iced latte.

What are the saved weather locations on your phone?

I’ve maxed out the limit. I love keeping them from the places I’ve been. Ranging from Buenos Aires to Tobermory to Copenhagen to Montreal.

What’s your sign?

Virgo.

Favorite overused movie quote?

“I'll be back” (most successfully used when leaving any room for literally any amount of time).

What was your favorite cartoon as a kid?

Phineas and Ferb (only got to watch at my grandparents’ house).

What’s one movie or TV show you're currently obsessed with?

I’ve watched Sentimental Value like six times.

Who is your celeb idol?

Saoirse Ronan (a Celtic queen).

If you had to be on a reality TV show, what would it be?

The Traitors.

Go-to karaoke song?

“Magic” by B.o.B.

What’s something that’s inspiring you lately?

My mum, but she’s always been it.

What is something you would want people to say about you?

I just want to be a good guy.