【Girlfriend Who is Crazy About Big Things】

Margaret Atwood's novel The Girlfriend Who is Crazy About Big ThingsHandmaid's Tale may have been published more than 30 years ago, but the cast of the upcoming series says the story could not be more relevant in 2017.

The 10-episode series, which debuts on Hulu on April 26, follows people in a dystopia called Gilead -- a totalitarian society, once part of the U.S., rooted in twisted religious fundamentalism. A place where a class of women are subjugated and used only for reproduction.

"I think ... whenever people read [the book], people say it's timely," Bruce Miller, the show's executive producer and writer, said at Hulu's Television Critics Association presentation in Los Angeles Saturday.

"People pick out different aspects of the book that really ring true to them or speak to the time they are living in. None of us could ignore what was happening [last year]. I was writing the pilot script during the primaries, during all the debates ... We were of course mindful of that."

SEE ALSO: Watch the beautiful, horrifying trailer for Hulu's 'Handmaid's Tale'

Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men)stars as one of the world's few remaining fertile women, Offred. Orange is the New Blackstar Samira Wiley plays Moira, Offred's best friend from college and fellow handmaid-in-training, and Alexis Bledel plays Ofglen, an ally to Offred.

Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski, Max Minghella, Madeline Brewer, Ann Dowd and O-T Fagbenle also co-star.

"[The book] is like a Shakespeare play. It remains timeless in its content," Fiennes said.

"I feel like it's our responsibility as artists to reflect the time we are living in," Wiley added.

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The show's relevancy after the 2016 election, when reality star and businessman Donald Trump was elected the next president of the United States, was just one of the many topics the cast touched on at TCA.

Here are four new things we learned about the show:

1. The series is largely true to the book

"I think we're certainly loyal to the book," Miller said. "We think the book is excellent ... any changes we make are mindful of the fact we are connected to the original material. We are just trying to tell the story well."

2. There's a lot of voiceover (on purpose)

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Neither Miller nor Moss had ever been involved with a project that used so much voiceover.

Because the book is written from Offred's perspective, Miller felt it was was important to include her voice -- and Atwood's writing -- when adapting it for the small screen.

"The movie didn't use voiceover," Miller noted, referring to the 1990 film adaption starring Natasha Richardson and Faye Dunaway. "[But] the book is voiceover, it's [Offred's] voice telling us the story. As young writers we're often told no voiceovers, no flashbacks -- we screwed all that up [with the show]. I think you need a way to get past what Offred's allowed to show on her face and what she's thinking and feeling."

"What I like the most about it is it connects me to the viewer," Moss said. "I hold their hand a little bit and walk them through this world."

3. In addition to Atwood's book, the writing staff referenced Puritan life in America

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Miller said the writing staff looked at Puritan life in America as a parallel to life in Gilead.

"This country gets a reputation for being a place where people came for religious freedom," Miller said. "The Puritans who came liked their religious freedoms, but no one else's. The way they dealt with outsiders is slightly nicer than the people in Gilead."

4. The dynamics between the characters are different on screen compared to the book

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"I think that when you have a novel and a TV show, the dynamics between the relationships have to be different," Miller said.

For example, The Commander (Fiennes) and Serena (Strahovski) are younger in the show than they are in the book.

"It bumped me when I saw in the movie that Serena Joy was beyond child-bearing years," Miller said. "It felt like they weren't in direct competition and Offred wasn't taking a role that Serena wanted more than anything for herself.”

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