'The Veil' fight scenes, accent challenged Elisabeth Moss

LOS ANGELES, April 26 (UPI) -- Elisabeth Moss said The Veil, on Hulu on Tuesday, required innovative choreography to make her into a convincing action hero with her 5' 3" frame.

Moss stars as Imogen, a MI6 agent trying to recover suspected terrorist Adilah El Idrissi (Yumma Marwen) before the United States gets to her.

"I'm quite small, so [Imogen] had to use her skill and intelligence rather than brute force," Moss told UPI in a Los Angeles interview. "It was a lot about wrist manipulation and quick movements."

Speaking in Imogen's British accent required as much training as the combat, Moss said. She said she worked on the dialect for six months before filming and continued practicing through post-production.

"[Accents] immediately establish a different character when the character has a completely different voice," Moss said. "So, it's a very helpful tool, but they're not easy, especially not if you're a perfectionist like I am."

Imogen finds Adilah in Turkey and earns enough of her trust to convince her to flee with her. During their journey, Adilah and Imogen bond in unexpected ways, Moss said.

Moss said the friendship that evolves is genuine, even though Imogen still suspects Adilah is a terrorist.

"As they learn more about each other, it might ebb and flow," Moss said. "She actually likes Adilan and she respects her."

Moss said Imogen makes Adilah feel seen and thus encourages Adilah to open up to Imogen on their journey.

"They've had very different lives, so they've wound up in very different places," Moss said. "They both go to a place that they didn't expect to go."

The story of The Veil developed from an idea from producer Denise Di Novi. She pitched Steven Knight, who "created the whole world and characters," Di Novi said.

FX, which produced Knight's Taboo, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations, developed the show before it offered The Veil to Moss. Hulu is FX's exclusive streaming home. Moss also is an executive producer of The Veil with Knight and Di Novi.

Di Novi said Moss matched her passion and work ethic.

"She was 100% my partner as a producer in this," Di Novi said. "She's obviously done a lot more television than I have."

Moss said she was grateful that Di Novi welcomed her as a producer, because Di Novi has been producing since the '80s with films like Heathers and Edward Scissorhands.

Moss said both she and Di Novi worked weekends across international time differences.

"We both understand that it can be a 24/7 job," Moss said. "We're both very relentless in our pursuit of the best possible creative [outcome]."

That pursuit included organizing The Veil production on location in three countries, Turkey, Paris and the United Kingdom.

Di Novi said the production scouted "places where these characters would really inhabit, not just the Instagram version of Paris or Istanbul," adding that The Veil worked around the 2023 French pension reform protests in Paris and earthquakes in Turkey.

"It was totally worth it," Di Novi said. "The business is now a global business and the world is global so we really wanted to reflect that."