Happy Day, Miss Moss
Friday, July 24, 2020 at 12:10PM by Jason Adams
Today we wish a happy 38 to the actress I have come to consider (give or take a Carey Mulligan) my favorite working actress, Elisabeth Moss. At the start of quarantine I binge-watched Mad Men for the very first time (here's the Twitter thread if you missed it) which only cemented my love, which had been gaining momentum like a great big boulder rolling down a hill (there's a "gathering Moss" joke in there somewhere) over the past few years to become, now, this unstoppable force.
The top of the hill was definitely 2014-ish when the triumverate of Listen Up Phillip, The One I Love, and Queen of Earth came out swinging and knocked me out of my socks...
Soon after came Top of the Lake and her hilarious turns in The Square and The Seagull and Us. And astride all of that of course were all things Offred, which is where my pleasure turned to true obsession. By the time she went and gave last year's best (and most egregiously ignored) female performance in Her Smell I was basically stopping strangers on the street, holding up pictures of her, shaking and crying.
And now here we are and it's 2020 and she's given two of the year's best performances to date, with the gaslit Cecelia in The Invisible Man reboot and Shirley -- Miss Jackson if you're nasty -- in Josephine Decker's exquisite, mossy bio-pic Shirley. No idea what the size of her role will be in Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch (or if that is still coming out, even) but she'll no doubt be something special -- she literally always is.
So now I ask you fine knowledgable people -- will the Academy finally deign to notice her here in 2020, overdue and at last? Or should I go ahead and start my online petitions and/or letter-writing campaigns right now? I can't do the whole accosting strangers on the street thing during a pandemic sadly, so it'll have to be virtual this time. Somebody get me David Rubin on Zoom, stat!
Reader Comments (18)
I too love Moss and have since MM. Her film work in the 2010's has been excellent and probably the best of any actress of her generation. I'd argue she has been worthy of nominations for her three ARP collabs.
I hope she can get some oscar recognition but with her films having premiered over a year before the oscar ceremony will happen I don't think it's gonna happen.
She'll continue to be great and I hope THT can end soon so she can do more film work.
She's a strong actress and she's pretty good at creating distinct characters. However, most of the film's she does aren't to the academy's taste. And, although we live in a world where the line between television and film is blurred, she still feels very much like a "TV actress" who dabbles in independent films.
Like Allison Janney, Tilda Swinton, Cloris Leachman, Mary Tyler Moore, or Laurie Metcalf, I think she'll need a prominent role in an academy friendly film to score a nomination and win.
I feel like The Handmaid's Tale came at the wrong time in her career. She had already done everything there was to do on TV as well as it's ever been done. It doesn't offer the wit and style of Mad Men or the dramatic sophistication of Top of the Lake. Not sure if a couple Emmys were worth a downer of a project that lost its "SO TIMELY!" meme status after one season. It's certainly kept her in the TV lane longer than she needed to be.
Maybe she'll be like Helen Mirren and get "rediscovered" from decades on prestige TV when she's older. IMO she's better than Mirren.
I have the same birthday as her! Wow. Now I've got Elisabeth Moss as well as Anna Paquin and Jennifer Lopez.
Words cannot describe how much I love this post!! The one good thing about the paucity of releases this year is that it may mean some awards attention for Elisabeth Moss... she deserves it, after being unjustly overlooked last year.
Discovered her in THE HANDMAID'S TALE and she easily became one of my favorite actresses ever. The extreme emotional demands of that character is just unbelievable and she brings so much power into the show. It was all perfect timing for me (it's my favorite show ever) and for her (she finally won the Emmy!).
With film, I love La Renée, but she shouldn't have been the easy frontrunner that year. Alfre Woodard (Clemency) and Moss (Her Smell) were right there.
The way things are going with release dates I could see her winning for Shirley as a congratulations for a great year,anyone remember her in Girl Interrupted.
She will rack up a couple of nominations in quick succession soon. Shame about the Scientology and Top Of The Lake accent. Both are unacceptable in 2020.
I hope she leaves the Scientology soon. It's holding her back.
I wish The Handmaid's Tale had been a limited series; the quality started going downhill in S2, and her performance is too one-note and obvious for me at this point.
I agree that she should take a break from television and focus on her film career.
every time i see her onscreen i'm distracted by how much i miss peggy olson
I was scared she would never top her Mad Men performance. I’m so glad I was wrong. I really liked Queen of Earth, despite it mostly feeling like a Robert Altman student film knock off, and seeing her performance for the first time I realized we were in for an exciting career.
I love Elisabeth (and she looks just like my sister in law!). I still love Handmaid's Tale—that season three finale was incredible. I'd rather see her nominated for THE INVISIBLE MAN as I feel like it was a greater achievement as a performance, but also because I feel like SHIRLEY somewhat doesn't capitalise on what she can do although I liked the movie well enough.
PS I'm 100% with Glenn on Handmaids Tale -- I still love the show, and her performance somehow still manages to surprise me every single episode. I honestly don't know if there's anything she can't do.
And I absolutely do HATE that she remains in the Scientology cult but even in the face of that I can't deny how incredible I find her as a performer, which says more about her talent than it does my hatred for Scientology, which runs real deep. I just can't look at anything else when she's on-screen, and it's too undeniable.
People who are in Scientology are generally brainwashed from a younger age and genuinely believe they’re doing good for the world. It’s difficult to hold it against them because most of them don’t really have a choice anymore. It’s a complicated situation but I definitely recommend looking it up before passing judgement. It’s a terrible organization but most the people involved are victims and often times threaten to be there against their will.
She's a scientologist so I'm sure she'll receive her nominations soon. Although being apart of that cult doesn't help as much as it once did, since the truth is finally being exposed.
It's hard for me to take her seriously because of that, but I must say she's a truly fantastic actress.
As the resident Mad Men maven, I adore Lizzy Moss completely. She was great in West Wing too, if you haven't checked it out.
Our Mad Men blog & archives remain online (albeit dormant) including two interviews with the fabulous Miss M.