Emmy award-winning actress Ann Dowd reveals what she believes happened to Aunt Lydia before the rise of Gilead.

One of the most feared people in Gilead isn’t the Eye — it’s Aunt Lydia, the caretaker of the Handmaids. Unfortunately, the show hasn’t given the fans any indication of who she was prior to the conception of Gilead, and according to the Emmy award-winning actress who plays her, we won’t find out anytime soon.

But if you ask Ann Dowd, she has a whole backstory created for her frightening character.

“I believe something happened to her to shut the doors,” Dowd said to FanSided. “I think it probably happened early. I would ask, maybe she fell in love at 12 years-old or 13 and had sex and got pregnant and then the profound shame was placed upon her — baby taken, her shut away, sent away to a convent, something. Those scary things land.”

Dowd revealed that she herself was raised in a Catholic family, but never had a bad experience with a nun, though she’d hear the stories.

“You carry that guilt and that shame and I just think it shut her down. Whatever happened there and she thought ‘I will never ever, ever cross you again’.”

Dowd says that she believes that Aunt Lydia is one of the few true believers of Gilead, and what it was built to stand for and that even she sees the bad in the higher officials.

“I think she is all in,” she said.

Season 1 ended when the handmaid’s revolted against Aunt Lydia after they refused to stone their fellow handmaiden to death. We will know in the first five minutes of Season 2 exactly what Aunt Lydia has in store for them, and it’s not pretty.

“We shot it at about four or five in the morning,” Dowd said. “Which adds the sleeplessness, and it was freezing cold which was perfect for that scene. But you know at the end of season 1, I think it truly shocked Lydia that she had so little control ultimately. That when push came to shove, I had not done my job. So I think she did a lot of thinking and a lot of soul-searching.”

Season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale will be released on April 25, but if you haven’t seen season 1 yet, or just want to binge watch it again before season 2 debuts, season 1 is available now on Blu-ray and DVD.