-Our first guest tonight is an Emmy and Golden Globe
Award-winning actress you know from films such as
"Us" and "The Invisible Man"
and television shows such as "The West Wing" and "Mad Men."
She stars as June Osborne in "The Handmaid's Tale,"
which returns for its fourth-season premiere
tonight on Hulu.
Please welcome back to show Elisabeth Moss.
It's so nice to see you, Lizzie!
-Hi. How are you? It's so good to see you.
-You were here right before
everything came to a stop, and you were on your way.
We were talking about last February.
You were on your way to start.
I imagine you got a fair bit delayed.
-Yes. We got a tad delayed. About six months.
Yeah. Just a small six-month delay. Yeah.
-And then did you -- You looped back and you actually
came back to New York where you had to spend an extended amount
of time for a long period of your life, right?
-Yeah, I live in New York, and it was the longest amount
of time I think I've spent here in one chunk
since, like, I was unemployed in my early 20s.
[ Laughter ]
-Probably -- I was going to say, you know,
it must be nice now to not be unemployed, but this last year,
I feel like all of us felt like --
"Oh, if only to be unemployed and outside."
-[ Laughs ] I know. Exactly, exactly.
It wasn't exactly the break I would have loved.
-You spent some time -- Couple of cats?
-Yes, I spent some time with my cats, Lucy and Ethel.
Thank you so much for mentioning them.
-Were they good roommates? -They're great roommates.
Fantastic. They're the best. They're very low-maintenance.
-I want to compliment you because, you know, one of
the things I think everybody is doing now is looking back and
seeing what they accomplished during this last year.
You started a production company. Well done.
-Yeah, I did. Thank you.
I tried to keep myself as busy as possible.
And it was one of things I'd wanted to do for many years,
and I finally kind of had the time to invest in such a thing.
So I keep getting asked, like, "Did you pick up a hobby?"
Like, "What did you do? Did you start cooking?
Did you start knitting?"
And, no, I opened up a company.
-Well done. Like I said, it's very impressive.
-Thank you. -I feel this way every time
"Handmaid's" come back because I watch this show.
I love this show.
And yet I feel like I forget, and someone is like,
"Oh, my God! I'm so happy it's back!"
And then I start watching.
And this picks up exactly where we left off,
and, once again, life's not great for the handmaids.
-No, no.
Life's just -- Life is just not great.
That's what comes with being a handmaid, Seth.
Just the basic job itself.
-Yup. -Not great.
-Right. It's not like, "Good news! We joined a union!"
[ Laughter ]
-"Guess what! We've made some changes."
-"Yeah, we got -- It's really great.
We all -- Three weeks paid vacation."
Which is huge for handmaids.
-You still have to do that whole, like, monthly rate thing,
but, you know, besides that...
[ Laughter ] -You --
It's very difficult -- and we discussed a lot --
trying to find a clip for the show.
-Yes. -But you don't want the give
too much away in a clip, and it was hard to find one,
and I want to thank you because you sort of worked overtime
to select something from this season
that doesn't give too much away.
-Yeah, it's very, very difficult.
It's also, obviously, a dark show,
so you have to pick the right thing.
And you guys have a 30-second, you know, maximum,
which is almost impossible, but I think I did my best
in finding something that I feel communicates
what this season is about.
-All right. Let's take a look at what Lizzie brought.
-[ Laughing ]
-How dare you.
People tune in to this show for spoilers.
-I feel like -- I feel like that's a win-win situation.
You know what I mean?
Like, people get to see a beautiful cat.
Ethel with some "Late Night" exposure, which is good.
-Now, how does Lucy feel about the fact
that Ethel got in the clip and she was not to be seen?
-To be fair, because I'm a good cat mom, I sent two clips.
I sent one of Lucy and one of Ethel.
And I left it up to you guys, so I'm safe in this house.
-Oh, sure. That's the story you'll tell Lucy.
[ Laughter ]
"Oh, honey, there were two clips."
-"It wasn't my fault. They just picked the other one.
I don't know what to tell you."
-What about -- You directed three episodes this year.
You directed one in the past? Or was this the first time?
-No, no. -Oh, wow.
This is the first time I directed, yeah,
and I was supposed to just direct the first --
episode three, and then I ended up directing
three episodes during a pandemic.
-Was that basically sort of due to
"Hey, it might be easier if we had fewer people around
as supposed to..." -Definitely, definitely.
It was definitely helpful as a production
to have less people,
and people liked the first episode that I did,
so I kind of just put myself up for the job.
-It looks like the pandemic
has been pretty good for Lizzie Moss.
-[ Laughs ]
Why do you sound so mad?
-How did you find it? How did you enjoy the directing?
-I loved it. I loved it. It was incredibly fulfilling.
It was, honestly, the most rewarding thing I think
I've ever done in my career.
I loved it so much.
My favorite thing was working with the actors,
and they're so, so incredible, and I developed something
that I really loved doing,
which was the complete objectification
of Max Minghella, who plays Nick.
-Yeah, so, explain the subjectification.
-Well, I think he's -- You know, he's a beautiful man.
-Right. -He's a beautiful man.
And, you know, there's no denying that.
And I just wanted to sort of flip the tables on things.
And -- I mean, look at him.
-Lot of close-ups when it was left to you.
-When it was left in my hands, me and my cinematographer,
Stuart Biddlecombe, designed scenes and shots
to highlight his beauty
and, you know, things on -- close-ups on his eyes
and things on the back of his neck.
-Yeah, we noticed you were -- And I will say --
I heard you had said he had a really nice neck.
And I thought, "Who has a nice neck?"
And then I saw this. I'm like, "Guy's got a good neck."
-It's a beautiful neck. -It's a really good neck.
-And Stuart and I would sit behind the monitor,
and we're supposed to be very serious and watching this
really serious scene, and we'd just be sitting there
and be like, "Oh, God. Isn't he beautiful?
Look at him. Look at him. He's so handsome.
Look at those eyebrows. God, he's good."
-One of the things that happened
between the third and the fourth season
is Margaret Atwood
had the book "The Testaments" come out,
which takes place in the future but in the same world.
Some of the same characters. -You read.
Which is awesome. -Yeah, I read. I loved.
And it's interesting because, sort of knowing
the future of this timeline, you know, it allows you
to look at the characters slightly differently.
How much did you guys take that book into account
in the creation of the season which, of course,
is still far before the events of that book?
-Totally. I mean, Margaret did us a solid,
and she put it 15 years ahead, which allows us to kind of
create our own story getting there.
But it is really cool knowing kind of --
especially maybe somebody like Aunt Lydia.
I don't want to spoil anything for anybody
who hasn't read the book, but, you know, Ann and I
worked a lot together this season as actors
and as director-actor, and we were able to take
what we kind of know is coming and bring it into the season
for the more eagle-eyed viewers
or viewers who have read that book.
So it has been extremely informative.
I mean, if anyone could write the end of your story,
it should be Margaret Atwood. -That is true.
I think we're all lucky that that happened.
And I'm so -- I genuinely am very happy the show is back.
-Thank you. -It continues to be such
an accomplishment, and hopefully we'll see you
next time here in the studio.
-Absolutely, absolutely. I'd love to see you in person.
-All the best, Lizzie. The first three episodes
of "The Handmaid's Tale" are available now on Hulu.