Elisabeth Moss On Directing 'The Handmaid's Tale' -- Behind The Lens

Elisabeth Moss is well known as an Emmy-winning actress and force in several hit series going back to The West Wing and most notably including Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale along with limited series successes like Top of the Lake. Her film work includes acclaimed performances in Her Smell, Shirley, The Square and The Invisible Man and upcoming in Wes Anderson’s Cannes competition entry The French Dispatch, among many others. But she isn’t content to be just onscreen: she also is becoming a force offscreen as well by producing several of her projects and now also directing.

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She made her debut in the director’s chair helming three episodes of this season’s The Handmaid’s Tale and is taking it even further by stepping behind the camera for two episodes of her upcoming AppleTV+ series The Shining Girls. Moss always is fun to talk with and joins me today for this week’s edition of my Deadline video series Behind the Lens, where we talk in depth about her decision to become a multiple threat in the business. We chat in particular about her finally deciding to add directing to her credits on The Handmaid’s Tale, the series for which she has won a couple of Emmys for acting and producing and which continued strong into its just-wrapped fourth season with some new twists and turns to shake things up.

We discuss the challenges involved, particularly the sad fact that she only got a day and a half into her directorial debut when Covid shut down production. She had months to prepare to shoot the rest of that episode, giving her prep time that rivals that of legends like Stanley Kubrick (!). Joking aside, Moss is serious about this phase of her career and has definite ideas of how to do it. She also is working on that new Apple series and is finding all sorts of new paths for her career to take as an actress, producer, and director. She also tells me who her filmmaking inspirations are, so to watch our conversation and go ‘behind the lens’ with Elisabeth Moss, just click on the link above.

Join me every Friday during Emmy season for more episodes of Behind the Lens.

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