How Elisabeth Moss Became a Riot Grrrl
Elisabeth Moss was a teen in the Nineties, but she never paid much attention to grunge or punk. “I just wasn’t cool enough,” she says. “I was definitely more into Britney Spears.” But she had to learn about it for Alex Ross Perry’s film Her Smell. Moss plays the unhinged, drug-addicted lead singer of Something She, a punk trio similar to L7 or Bikini Kill. Moss prepared while filming her hit series The Hand
maid’s Tale, and calls the role one of her hardest ever. She explains how she did it.
KORY GROW
Grunge 101
Moss had to educate herself on punk and grunge’s early days: “I started out with Nirvana, and then I focused on the women,” she says. “I went back to the Runaways. I was really interested in the idea of this generation that felt left behind and abandoned.” For the history, she read Sara Marcus’ riot-grrrl chronicle Girls to the Front twice: “That was a bible for that movement,” Moss says.
Chasing ‘Amy’
Perry got the script idea while reading about Axl Rose’s secluded Nineties in ROLLING STONE. But Moss admits she “didn’t really connect” with Rose. She did connect with the Amy Winehouse doc Amy, watching it
“10 times”: “That vulnerability she has is so interesting, like Marilyn Monroe or anyone who wasn’t equipped to deal with the life they had.”
Handmaid’s Riffs
Moss grew up in a musical family, but never studied any instruments herself. So for about five months as The Handmaid’s Tale was shooting, she took guitar lessons. “I carried the guitar around for the entirety of Season Two,” she says. “I practiced in the car, whenever I could. My goal wasn’t to learn to play the guitar, but to look like I knew.”
Beck-ducation
To get a better feel for what life was like for a Nineties rock star, Moss sat down with Beck. “He helped me so much in understanding where that music came from — why were these kids so mad at everybody? And all of a sudden I started to love the music.”
Let Yourself Go
In the film, Moss is full of manic energy — cutting herself and strangling her bandmates. “No crazy fucking thing was off-limits,” she says. One of the hardest parts was maintaining the energy level of a coke addict. “Modulating the different levels of her highness — when she’s up, down, what the different drugs make her feel — was challenging,” says Moss. How did she do it? “Coffee,” she says. “A lot of caffeine.”