The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Elisabeth Moss returns to TV in Hulu’s ‘Handmaid’s Tale’
NEWYORK » “The timing has been uncanny,” says Margaret Atwood, marveling at how her 1985 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has not only been given renewed life as a TV series but has also gained disturbing urgency.
“Last November 7, they thought they were making a fantasy fiction series,” Atwood says. “On November 9, they thought maybe they were making a documentary.”
However you take it, “The Handmaid’s Tale” premieres Wednesday on Hulu with three episodes. The remaining seven will be released each Wednesday thereafter.
The cast includes Joseph Fiennes, Alexis Bledel and Samira Wiley, and stars Elisabeth Moss as Offred, who, as one of the few remaining fertile women in the cruel dystopia of Gilead, is among the caste of women forced into sexual servitude in a des- perate attempt to repopulate a ravaged world.
Needless to say, Offred is a career stretch for Moss, who remains best known as proto-feminist copywriter Peggy Olson on the advertising drama “Mad Men,” and who initially caught the audience’s eye as First Daughter Zoey Bartlet on “The West Wing.”
During a season hiatus for “Mad Men,” Moss, 34, added to her roster of oddly relatable performances: She played an Australian police officer returning to her remote New Zealand hometown where she confronted the disappearance of a local 12-year-old girl in the acclaimed 2013 miniseries “Top of the Lake.”