Elisabeth Moss stars in Ruben Ostlund’s “The Square.”
Elisabeth Moss is fast becoming the Julia Louis-Dreyfus of “Mad Men” — the breakaway cast member whose career explodes following the series’ end, as happened to Louis-Dreyfus after “Seinfeld.”
Between seasons of the critically lauded “Top of the Lake,” Moss completed the TV miniseries “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Her performance as a woman living a hellish existence in a dystopian future finally won her an Emmy after six nominations for playing an aspiring ad executive in “Mad Men.”
Moss’ first foreign film, “The Square,” went on to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes. The 34-year-old actress, known as Lizzie in her regular life, says her experience at Cannes “felt like you were in a Fellini film.”
Her outfit for a day of interviews promoting her “The Square” — a short canary yellow dress under a leather bomber jacket studded with stars along with high black boots — could be described as Felliniesque.
Accepting compliments on both her attire and her booming career, Moss exhibited none of the coy modesty others on the brink of major stardom have been known to show.
“Oh, I love Julia, so it is ever so nice to be compared to her in any way. But you know, I have been working for a really long time,” said Moss, who played the president’s teenage daughter in the television series “The West Wing.”
“Just having a job is great. When you have a job and people actually like watching you — well, that’s sort of a bonus.”
A big fan of Swedish director Rubin Ostlund, whose film “Force Majeure” (2014) scored a Golden Globe nomination, Moss wasn’t above auditioning for him for the part of a journalist in “The Square.”
“I thought maybe being an American was sort of a drawback for me,” Moss said. “But then I learned the part wasn’t written to be any nationality in particular. Still, I was really surprised when I got it because I had heard Rubin had seen a variety of actresses.”
Her character is dispatched to interview a pompous curator (played by Danish actor Claes Bang) at a cutting-edge Swedish art museum. (Another of his encounters — a bungled attempt to retrieve his stolen wallet and iPhone — forms the crux of the film.)
Moss drew on her own experience for this scene, in which it becomes apparent that the reporter has a scalpel out for her subject.
“Journalists sometimes pretend as if they are your friend and pretend as if the knife isn’t out for you, but at a certain point, you realize they are like going for it,” she said. When it was pointed out that this interview had started with a compliment, Moss laughingly said she wasn’t worried.
Her instinct was right. The question she surely must dread the most — about belonging to the Church of Scientology — wasn’t raised because for years she’s given a standard nonanswer to it. She recently said on the “Today” show: “I’m always happy to have a personal conversation with somebody off the record, but in this scenario, no.”
The specter of Scientology, which she was raised in, haunts her. Recent stories speculated that her religion might knock her out of the Emmy race. When she won at last, a former Scientologist was quoted saying Moss’ use of profanity in her acceptance speech was related to a teaching within the church called “the tone scale,” which involves trying to communicate with average people.
It is unclear how an average Joe would respond to her tussle over a freshly filled condom in “The Square,” let alone her having a monkey for a roommate. But the art house audience for which the film is targeted should find it hilarious.
Succumbing to the polished charm of the museum curator, she goes to bed with him. When she retrieves his used condom, possibly out of a desire to have his child, he fights her for it.
“That is my favorite scene,” Moss said. “We had so much fun filming it. It seemed like there were 50 takes.”
Because the film was partially financed by German money, it was agreed that the sex scene would be shot in a flat in Berlin. “Some of the crew wasn’t able to come with us from Sweden, so we had these German sound people,” Moss said. “We must have seemed to them like these very weird art people coming to shoot with a monkey. They (the sound techs) were watching two people having sex in an orange apartment and then winding up fighting over a condom.”