Speaking up for a show and for principle

Emmy nominee Elisabeth Moss on ‘risky’ show

For her role as Offred, the defiant baby-making slave in The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss has earned her eighth Emmy nomination. The performance is a marvel of sardonic voice-over and subtle eye acting as Offred tries to make sense of a mad world from inside her starched white bonnet.

But after going winless after six nominations for her role as Peggy Olson in Mad Men and one for her performance as detective Robin Griffin in Top of the Lake, Moss is trying to play it cool. “You don’t feel much pressure at all,” she said cheerily in a phone call from Los Angeles. “You’re just excited to be invited to the party, especially with a new show that was pretty risky.”

While in Australia filming Season 2 of Top of the Lake, Moss swooned over the scripts for the adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel. But it took her a while to sign on as the show’s star as well as an executive producer.

“I really wanted to be sure that what I wanted to make was what everyone else wanted to make,” she said of the initial material. “Something that was going to go as far as it needed to go but at the same time not feel like a bitter pill to swallow.”

These are edited excerpts from a conversation with Moss.

QWhat was the vision for the show?

We wanted to do justice to the book, to be dark but have this sense of humour, to be entertaining. Margaret Atwood has talked about that in terms of actually writing the book: She knew that if she didn’t create a good story around what she was trying to say, that nobody was going to read it. They might as well just read a nonfiction essay on the world.

AQHow was it to juggle duties both in front of and behind the camera while dealing with such dark material?

I worked more on this show than I’ve ever worked on anything. It was a 24-hour job for many, many, many months. I didn’t work on it when I was sleeping,

Abut I woke up thinking about it. So when people say, “Oh my God, it was such dark material — was it a dark thing to film?” I say, “No, because you don’t have time for that.” Q: Four out of the five directors on The Handmaid’s Tale were women. How important was a female director to setting the tone? A: It was not only important for setting the tone of the show, but we all believe that it is incredibly important to hire women behind the camera. There’s a huge imbalance that needs to be corrected, and we’ve got to put our money where our mouth is and set that example as producers. If we don’t do it, who will?

QYou received pushback for stating at the Tribeca Film Festival in April that The Handmaid’s Tale was not a feminist story but rather a human story.

That was my mistake in the sense that I should have been much clearer. What I should have said is that it is not only a feminist story but it is also a human story. Obviously it is first and foremost a feminist story. I play a woman who has had her child and her family taken

Aaway from her, and all of her rights as a woman stripped and who is essentially a prisoner. But I was trying to say that it was also a human story in the sense that there are other groups — other races, colours and creeds — who are punished and maligned and are not given the right to be heard as well.

QThe handmaid’s uniform — crimson robes and white bonnets — has become a symbol of oppression at women’s rights protests.

I feel a huge sense of pride toward those women. These women are out there on the front lines, going to the places where the laws and the legislation are actually being decided. They’re taking risks, and they’re exercising their right to protest, and they are the true heroes.

AQHow has it felt to be part of the political conversation this year?

We never knew that it was going to be this relevant. I think we definitely would prefer it not to be. We’d prefer it to be this crazy fantasy, this world that you couldn’t possibly imagine ever happening. And instead it has become a cautionary tale that is far too close to home.

AQDo you have any favourite Emmy nominees?

Oh, gosh, I’m a huge fan of The Crown. Fargo is probably my favourite drama. And Veep is my favourite show of all time. I’m excited to meet Tony Hale (Gary Walsh on Veep), who I just think is incredible.

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