Who Do You Want Elisabeth Moss To Be?
I'm meeting Elisabeth Moss at sunset on the roof of the Jane Hotel, a normal thing to do that's 100 percent in keeping with the rest of my everyday life, which is why, by the time she arrives, I've had two Campari sodas and delved so deeply into the social media apps on my phone that casual acquaintances probably think I'm stalking them. Okay, fine: It is a little anxiety-producing to be meeting an actress who women around my age (35) and ambition level (very high) have spent so much time relating to. I'm not generally prone to feeling star struck, but this is different. This is Peggy Fucking Olson.
And now she's playing a character even more iconic than the plucky, triumphant, underdog feminist heroine of Mad Men. In a stroke of good luck for her and for Hulu, and bad luck for democracy everywhere, Donald Trump's apocalyptic presidency has coincided with the release of the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood's required-reading dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, which Moss stars in and also executive produced. And as the show's first season draws to a close, the news cycle continues to produce eerie parallels between current reality and the bleak future the show depicts. It's almost like the GOP is doing the Hulu publicity team a favor.
For Moss, this fraught confluence of events provides a giant opportunity: the chance to shake off Peggy in favor of a role that could be even more indelible. But to do so, she not only has to be a spokesperson for a work of art whose relevance gets more urgent with each headline—she also has to avoid alienating anyone who might be turned off by the word "feminism." It's a challenge that even a near-lifetime in the spotlight hasn't quite prepared her for.
In The Handmaid's Tale, America has been devastated by an environmental catastrophe, then overtaken by a theocratic regime. In the new capital of "Gilead," women are strictly color-coded: Wives, who wear blue, are the protected consorts of ruling-class Commanders. Handmaids, who wear red, are forced sexual/reproductive surrogates, trained and maintained by another class of women, the brown-clad older Aunts, who maintain order and dole out punishment. A servant-class of Marthas wear gray. Everyone is modestly covered, and only the Wives can show their hair. The misogyny is so overt and outsized that this part of the show still reads as surreal.
The real horror is in the flashback scenes. There, Moss's character is known as June, not, as she's later called, Offred—literally of-Fred, her Commander, played by Joseph Fiennes. June is a regular person who wears jeans and t-shirts. She and her short-fused lesbian best friend Moira, who's played by Orange Is the New Black standout Samira Wiley, bicker about the slow erosion of women's civil rights and use dating apps. She falls in love, has a kid. She and Moira talk about the crazy shit happening in the news. One day, June's boss at the publishing house where she works gets up and tells all the women they're fired. She tries to use her ATM card and it doesn't work; her money has been transferred into her husband's account. She and Moira go to a protest, but end up cowering as military police fire into the crowd. The slow erosion has become a landslide.
Oddly, though, during the show's initial press conferences, its cast didn't seem interested in taking advantage of their show's increasing parallels in reality, and a few off-key quotes that made Moss and her castmates seem ambivalent about whether the show is "feminist" caused many an online teapot-tempest. So I'm worried, going into our interview, that Moss will have her guard up, or just be tired of defending her feminist credentials.
When Moss arrives on the roof I compliment her makeup—she's fresh from the shoot for this story—and she makes a joke about having to remove a layer of bronzer so orangey it made her look jaundiced, except she momentarily can't remember the word "jaundiced," and when I provide it she's so impressed and grateful that my nervousness immediately evaporates. She doesn't look jaundiced at all; she is extremely, even unexpectedly, beautiful. She is actually much better looking than she's been allowed to be in her best known TV roles: Peggy had terrible bangs and dumpy outfits, Top of the Lake's Robin has those ennui-filled dark circles, and Offred isn't allowed to wear makeup because in Gilead she's only valued for her reproductive potential, not her aesthetic qualities. Also, the tiny asymmetry at the bridge of Moss's nose is beguiling in person; it's what elevates her prettiness into beauty, the tiny flaw that offsets the perfection of her giant tropical-ocean-colored eyes, baby skin, and radiant, toothy smile.
Our interview is one of her last publicity commitments for the show and it's been a long day already, but Moss is energetic and emphatically, almost comically, kind. She asks if I'm sure it's okay that I'm buying her a drink (a Moscow Mule with Grey Goose; I have another Campari, heavy on the soda) and she positions my recorder carefully to make sure it's capturing our interview, checking several times to make sure it's still working. Eventually, she insists on holding it on her lap. We both have dorky Mophie iPhone battery cases and are slightly underdressed for the weather in light jackets and sneakers; hers are Adidas Stan Smiths, which I inform her are a de rigueur Brooklyn Cool Mom shoe right now. They turn out to have been provided by her stylist; the rest of her outfit, cute Coach bomber jacket aside, is what she jokingly refers to as "outdoor sweatpants" and a Chicago Cubs t-shirt (number 17, Kris Bryant). She has a tiny black Rebecca Minkoff backpack that she has worn to death by loving it. When she gets cold, she texts someone and her Strand bookstore Virginia Woolf tote bag appears; there's a hoodie in there, along with two yogurts and an apple from the craft services table which she's swiped in lieu of buying groceries. At one point she tries to get me to eat the apple.
The tote bag also contains a precious bit of show swag: a black ballcap with "nolite te bastardes carborundorum" embroidered on its bill. Moss had these made by the Handmaid's Tale art department to look exactly like the scrawled note from the Handmaid who preceded Offred, which Offred finds in her bedroom's closet. In the book, this fake Latin for "don't let the bastards grind you down" is a message that's both hopeful—since women are forbidden to read, any written communiqué is thrilling—but ultimately tragic: Its author hanged herself, a sign of having let the bastards grind you down if there ever was one. Book-Offred contemplates ending her misery this way many times, but show-Offred is more sanguine; "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum, bitches," she says in voiceover at the end of episode four, seeming to foreshadow an uprising to come. The book pointedly doesn't make Offred a heroine of the resistance; she's focused on getting through the day, not on sticking her neck out. In the show version, though, she has more to live for: Knowing that her daughter and husband are both likely still alive makes her more willing to take the kind of risks that make for good TV, and for multiple seasons of it.
When Moss learns that this interview will run right before the finale airs, making it possible for her to speak openly about most of the season with no fear of spoilers, she's so thrilled that she almost jumps out of her chair. Even though she's been doing a grueling schedule of publicity for the show, in addition to the inhuman hours she put in on and off set, she's still dying to talk about the book and her character: "It's one of my favorite books in the world now, even after having read it nine million times." She can quote from it at will, and not just the best known lines like "a word after a word after a word is power" (though she does quote that one). She refers to its author as "Margaret," and brings up things that Margaret has said to her enough that I start to get the sense that they're genuinely tight, which is more impressive to me than if she'd offhandedly referred to a personal relationship with, say, Beyoncé.
For her part, Atwood has palpable respect for Moss; she describes her to me as "very smart" in a brief phone call that left me certain that this is a judgment Atwood doles out very, very rarely. (Atwood asks me "where are we going with this?" several times as I ramble nervously and points out flaws in my questions on the levels of philosophy, fact, and grammar; I hang up feeling like I've taken a dip in very pure, very cold Canadian water.) "You know, she's an executive producer of the show," Atwood tells me, as though bragging about the accomplishments of a favorite grandchild: "The interesting thing about her is that she's been an actor since she was about two. She's been in this all her life. I think if you're looking for her understanding of how all of this works, it comes from a deep background in doing that. She's been there, done that for a very, very long time."
When Moss talks about scenes and plot points, she refers to Offred/June as "I" and "she" interchangeably—not because of some kind of Method preciousness, I don't think, but because she's still very much invested in the inner life and eventual fate of this character. It's a fate the book leaves unresolved, and Moss is as curious as anyone to know what's going to happen next.
It's a desire that's linked, perhaps, to seeing what's going to happen next in the upcoming season of America. Other shows that are set more concretely in a contemporary-political-reality-adjacent space have struggled tonally as reality becomes hard to distinguish from satire, and some have revised their scripts to try to keep pace with current events. When Moss tells me that all but a few scenes of THT were shot prior to 11/8, I'm shocked. She says that the mood on the set did change, though, and that the cast watched the election results come in together. "Like, I don't go out, I don't socialize. Especially when I'm working. I hang out with my family and I have, like, three friends. And I went out because I thought we were gonna have the first female president, and I wanted to be out for that. I thought that was gonna be an amazing moment to see."
When the mood turned from celebratory to shell-shocked, she went home early, but then stayed up until 2 A.M., watching TV alone. And then at 6 A.M. she went to the set to shoot scenes with Joseph Fiennes for episodes 4 and 5. In these scenes, Offred has been permitted into her tormentor's office in order to play Scrabble and be privy to some of his dark thoughts and self-justifications. It's the scene where he tells her that "better never means better for everyone, it always means worse for some."
"It's hard to say whether or not my performance would have been different, but I know what I was feeling when I said that, and I can see it in the scene. I took it personally in a way that I perhaps would not have if it wasn't November 8th. It was a weird, intense day."
Moss's performance, in those scenes especially, has won near-universal acclaim; her ability to convey deep ambivalence while presenting a façade to a tormentor is one of her specialties. Jane Campion, who directs her in the soon-to-return moody detective drama Top of the Lake, calls this her "Mona Lisa quality." "There's so much that's not seen, but that pulls you towards her. When we first cast her, we had so many people try and do those scenes and some of them were pretty good but you weren't watching the whole scene, you'd drift off. When Lizzie did it … I found myself listening to it for the first time, really being involved in the scene. You somehow trust her and you want to know more."
We're still talking about how life has changed post-election, and I mention that the political climate has left many of my friends reeling, psychologically. Some, like Moira, are determined to fight, organizing and protesting and calling their representatives daily. Others are feeling untethered from reality, like it's the end of the world, and are overindulging in all kinds of ways— self-medicating, as Offred does with the only drug available to her, sex. Perhaps the most consequential divergence from the book, for Offred's character, is that in the show she decides to continue the affair she's begun with her household's driver, possible spy Nick (played steamily by Max Minghella), even after she learns that her husband Luke is probably still alive. In the book, he's presumed dead. The affair begins, Moss says, as a coping mechanism. "I mean, it's a way to get through the day when you're raped once a month," she deadpans. "I can identify with that, I think anyone can. I mean, that happens."
But she also hints that Nick and Offred's no-strings assignations are on their way to becoming something more, a change that would mark a radical divergence from the show's source material. The novel version of The Handmaid's Tale is many things, but it's not a love story. "It's part of the reason that I'm really excited about a season 2, she's in this position where she might be in love with two people. Honestly I think she does love Nick—if I can speak for her—but I don't know if she knows that she does, yet. But she has a husband who she also loves, who's the father of Hannah, who she also now knows is alive. It's the most complicated Real Housewives episode you've ever seen." She laughs. "The Real Housewives of Gilead is gonna have a great reunion after episode 10."
It's getting cold outside and I offer Moss the option of leaving the roof for the downstairs bar. "I don't want to take up your time moving," she demurs, and even though I know she really means her time, I'm still charmed. We take a break, though, and when she gets up and sees the sunset (she's been sitting facing east) she makes me stand to look at the view over the Hudson River and the New Jersey skyline. It's beautiful but like, it's a sunset. Undeterred, she grabs her Mophie-clad phone and stands at the edge of the balcony, repositioning herself until she has the perfect shot. I check her Instagram later and see that it's almost all photos of her in designer dresses. Does she have a secret civilian Insta full of sunset photos? Is there a version of Moss besides this cheerful, moderate, every-girl charmer?
When she returns, I put on my real-journalist hat (it's a J.Crew knit beanie; it really is getting cold on the roof) and prepare to ask her more difficult questions—about the show's controversial elements, and the cast's initial refusal to address its political subtext.
I try to ease into it by asking her about sexism she's personally experienced or witnessed, but asking if she's ever felt "pitted against" other actresses for a role goes nowhere: "I think it's up to women themselves not to pit themselves against each other. That's one of the major themes of this season—the power of women when they unite."
I think of Aunt Lydia gouging out Janine's eye, and of Ofglen's clitoridectomy, and mention that another theme is the power of women to undermine and damage other women. Moss nods seriously.
"When you turn women against each other, it can wreak havoc, because women are very powerful forces, and you can use that power for good or evil. When women support each other, rather than stoning each other to death, it's a game-changer. One of the most heartbreaking things has been for me to be in scenes with Serena Joy and wanting to scream at her, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you doing this to us? Help us! How can you do this to us?"
I hesitate, then decide not to bring up the idea that men's power is reinforced by deliberately creating structures that keep women at war with each other. We reach a similar impasse when, talking about how race is handled on the show (as a total nonissue), Moss told me that "we had enough to deal with without tackling race." It's actually not fair to expect her to be a spokesperson on behalf of any existing liberation movement, just because she plays a character who seems destined to be a catalyst for revolution. Her brilliant performance—and it is brilliant—can stand on its own, and that's lucky, because it will have to.
There's just one last thing left to pester her about, and I've saved it for last because it's the most likely to piss her off. She's said repeatedly on this tour and in profiles circa the last few seasons of Mad Men that she's said all she's ever going to say about being raised in Scientology. But... well, in the words of a recent Jezebel headline, "Isn't It Relevant That the Star of The Handmaid's Tale Belongs to a Secretive, Allegedly Oppressive Religion?"
Unsurprisingly, I get nowhere. To her, the show isn't about the danger of religious extremism, it's about the importance of religious freedom. "Whatever anyone believes, I don't believe that Church and State should get too close. And some of the things that have happened recently have really frightened me. For me, what the book and the show are so much about is that separation. It's a theocracy! No government should be run by any religion!" I press on, saying that after watching the show I've been thinking about the Hasidic Jewish women who live in my neighborhood in a different light. Their uniforms and constant pregnancy can't help but remind me of the Handmaids. "Except there's a huge difference," Moss says, "that they would be murdered in Gilead." (On the Wall that Offred and her fellow Handmaids pass on their walks, bodies are often marked with religious symbols; practicing a faith other than Gilead's ultra-Christianity is a capital offense.) For what it's worth, Margaret Atwood also considers Moss's religion to be a nonissue; to her, the alleged abuses that take place within Scientology are par for the course for any religion: "They all have their pluses and their minuses," she tells me, after listing a few of the lesser-known gory horrors found in the Old Testament.
As Moss waits for the elevator, I sneak off to the bathroom, but as I pee I can overhear the conversation she's having outside the door with a middle-aged woman and her son, whose Columbia graduation she's in town to celebrate. They've noticed her and haven't been able to stop themselves: They loved her in Mad Men. She thanks them sincerely and enthusiastically, as though theirs is the approval she's been craving all her life. "What are you up to now?" the woman wonders as we make our way down to the lobby. She tells them she's in a TV series based on a book called The Handmaid's Tale. The woman is impressed. "That's a very intellectual thing," she tells Moss. I am so embarrassed for all of us, but Moss is, of course, completely unfazed. After they're gone and we're waiting on the curb outside the hotel saying our goodbyes, I apologize to her for subjecting her to that elevator ride; her workaholic shut-in lifestyle makes more sense to me now that I've witnessed what it's like when she goes out. But she's fine with it, she says. "If that's the worst part of the job, that people tell you how great you are all the time, that's a pretty awesome job," she says, flashing her beautiful teeth at me one last time. Like everything else she says, she seems to genuinely believe it.
Photography by Olivia Malone | Styling by Kathryn Typaldos | Set Design by Amy Henry | Hair by Takuya Sugawara | Makeup by Aya Komatsu | Special Thanks to Industria Studio
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