©Hulu/Courtesy Everett Collection

While Madeline is perhaps best known for The Handmaid’s Tale, the 2018 thriller Cam, which follows a sex worker, or ‘cam girl’, who is replaced by deepfake technology, holds a special place in her heart. “Cam is my favourite thing I’ve ever done. I’m so proud of it,” she says. Given that Donald Trump has just signed the Take It Down Act, which addresses non-consensual deepfake abuse, and – thanks in part to the efforts of Glamour UK, survivors, and camapigners – the UK government has introduced new legislation to criminalise the creation of pornographic deepfakes without consent, Cam was clearly ahead of its time.

“I remember at the time that we were shooting Cam, there were conversations around deepfake porn of certain women… very big celebrities. And I just can’t imagine how utterly violating that must be. And not only is it for entertainment, it’s for sexual arousal, it is to steal something from someone. It is a robbery and a molestation,” says Madeline.

She continues, “I remember naked photos of girls circulating in my high school, and it was that kind of idea of like, oh, well, they deserved it. Why would you take a naked picture on your phone? And the thing is, it will start affecting just regular people, like your mum, sister, or your cousin or your best friend or your girlfriend. It’ll start affecting people you love, and people never really even consider caring about something until it hits them at home.”

As our interview wraps up, we come back, as we often do, to Janine. What’s Madeline’s final message from Janine? “We only have Janine now in season six because Janine chose to stay in season one. She did everything she could to stay because she knew she had a child,” Madeline reflects.

“I think the strongest thing you can do is to stay. Things will always get better. Then they might get worse again, but they will always get better.”

For more from Glamour UK’s Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.