Elisabeth Moss

American actress Elisabeth Moss is known for her roles on the TV series ‘The West Wing,’ ‘Mad Men’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’

Who Is Elisabeth Moss?

Elisabeth Moss was born July 24, 1982 in Los Angeles, California. She began her performing career as a ballet dancer but switched to acting with a breakout role in Girl, Interrupted. The young actress enjoyed a long-running role as the president's daughter on the popular drama The West Wing and went on to star in the acclaimed AMC series Mad Men as Peggy. She later snagged a Golden Globe Award in 2014 for her work on the miniseries Top of the Lake, and both Emmy and Golden Globe wins for her work on the first season of The Handmaid's Tale.

Movies and TV Shows

'Girl, Interrupted'

At 16, Moss landed a role opposite an Oscar-winning Angelina Jolie in the film Girl, Interrupted. Moss was so convincing as Polly, a teenage burn victim, that throughout filming costar Whoopi Goldberg believed she was an actual burn victim hired to play the part. "Whoopi really didn't know — a lot of people didn't, actually," Moss recalls. "But I would forget too, and then look in the mirror and be shocked. And that shocked feeling is right for Polly, the character — she's a child, she does forget about it." 

'The West Wing'

Around the same time she filmed Girl, Interrupted, Moss also began a long-running role as the president's daughter Zoey Bartlet on the TV series The West Wing. "I played her from when I was 17 to 24, off and on," she says. "That show was so well researched, but obviously I have no idea what it's like to be the president's daughter. I just tried to show a regular girl — with the Secret Service outside her dorm room."

Playing Peggy Olson on 'Mad Men'

Moss landed her most visible role to date on the AMC series Mad Men in 2007. The show is set in early 1960s New York City and revolves around the employees of Sterling Cooper, an advertising agency on Madison ("Mad") Avenue. Moss plays Peggy Olson, a secretary-turned-copywriter who demands equality with the show's dominant male characters. Moss earned wide acclaim for her portrayal of Peggy, a character whom critics described as a cipher. "I like that they don't understand Peggy," she says. "That makes the performance more interesting." 

During her time on Mad Men, Moss earned several Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations for her work on the show, including a 2015 Emmy nomination for Lead Actress in a Drama. The series had enjoyed great acclaim throughout its run, winning numerous Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. 

'Heidi Chronicles' and 'Handmaid's Tale' Wins

In addition to her work on Mad Men, Moss made her Broadway debut in the David Mamet play Speed-the-Plow in 2008. She followed that with an appearance on the big screen opposite Jonah Hill and Russell Brand in the 2010 comedy Get Him to the Greek.  

Moss later earned acclaim for her 2013 miniseries Top of the Lake. She played a detective on the show and earned a Golden Globe award for her performance. The following year, Moss co-starred with Mark Duplass in the romantic dramatic comedy The One I Love. They play a couple who takes a weekend away to try to repair their relationship. That same year Moss also starred in the indie film Listen Up Phillip, which was directed by Alex Ross Perry, with whom she would continue collaborating with in the coming years. 

In 2015 Moss took to the Broadway stage to appear in the revival of Wendy Wasserstein's hit play The Heidi Chronicles. She received a Tony Award nomination for her work. Later that year she co-starred in the big-screen newsroom drama Truth and in Queen of Earth (another Alex Ross Perry collaboration). In 2016 Moss worked alongside Liev Schreiber in the biopic Chuck, based on pro heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner's life.

In 2017 the actress starred in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel about a dystopian future in which fertile women serve an autocratic regime as child-bearing vessels. Moss's performance as Offred, a surrogate attempting to reclaim independence, drew viewers to one of the year's most acclaimed programs, leading to Emmy and Golden Globe wins for her work.

Following the cliffhanging end to season 1—and the novel—in which a pregnant Offred steps into a van to meet an uncertain fate, the highly anticipated second season debuted in April 2018. Moss seemed eager to discover how fans would handle the events of the new season, telling The Hollywood Reporter after a screening of its premiere that she was there to watch the audience respond to its squirm-inducing final scene.

Upcoming Projects

In March 2018, it was announced that Moss would headline the cast of The Kitchen, alongside Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish. An adaptation of a comic book series about women who take charge of gang activity after their mobster husbands land in jail, The Kitchen will feature Moss as a timid spouse who discovers a lust for violence.

Re-teaming with director Alex Ross Perry for a third time, Moss is also set to produce and star as a maniacal punk rock star in the indie flick Her Smell.

Personal Life

In 2009 Moss married musician and Saturday Night Live comedian Fred Armisen. The two had met the year before, when Mad Men costar Jon Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live and Moss joined him for several skits. But after just eight months of marriage, Moss and Armisen split ways.  

Moss credits her lifelong faith in Scientology in helping navigate the ups and downs of Hollywood. "I feel it has given me a sanity and a stability that I am not sure that I would have necessarily had," she said. "It has taught me so much about the importance of communication. In my line of work I am often in very stressful situations, in which you would often get totally nervous or clam up — you know, going on stage in front of 2,000 people. It's an applied philosophy. And L. Ron Hubbard definitely believed, and as Scientologists we believe, that the arts inject the spirit of life into our culture."  

Early Life as a Child Actress

Elisabeth Moss was born on July 24, 1982, in Los Angeles, California, to musicians Ron, a jazz artist and manager, and Linda, who plays blues harmonica. Moss describes herself as being a "serious, focused" child. She excelled at school and her favorite childhood pastime was playing "library" — a game that involved her stacking books on the staircase and checking them out to her parents. Growing up in a show business family, Moss says she always wanted to be a performer. "I can't explain how I knew," she says. "There wasn't one defining moment. But you just know." She made her professional acting debut at the age of six in the TV miniseries Lucky Chances.

Despite this start, as a child Moss focused primarily on dancing rather than acting. She traveled to New York to study at the School of American Ballet and then to Washington, D.C., to study with Suzanne Farrell at the Kennedy Center. "It took all the pressure off of auditioning for acting roles," she recalls. "If I didn't get a job, I just went on dancing. It saved me from becoming that nine-year-old who has everything riding on getting that one part." She adds, "We all know that nine-year-old, and she's not a pretty picture." Nevertheless, at the age of 10, Moss did get that breakthrough part, playing Baby Louise opposite Bette Midler in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Gypsy.

Moss was home-schooled by a private tutor and managed to graduate from high school two years early, in 1999, at the age of 16. 

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