Elisabeth Moss on ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Ending, Motherhood and What’s Next

Elisabeth Moss is bidding farewell to “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

When it premiered, in 2017, the Hulu series felt like an urgent response to the political turbulence of the early Trump presidency — and it was also a leveling-up for Moss, already an Emmy favorite for her role on “Mad Men.” If Peggy, her “Mad Men” secretary-turned-copywriter, was a standard-bearer for the midcentury women’s movement, June, the enslaved Handmaid who takes on her theocratic captors, thrusts her brand of feminism right into a charged present moment.

As “Handmaid’s” has gone on, Moss’ role has evolved: She is now an executive producer and a director, helming four episodes in the sixth and final season, including the finale. And, while June’s struggle for freedom has animated the series, Moss’ own life has changed; she’s worked increasingly frequently in film (“Us,” “The Invisible Man”) and on TV (“Shining Girls,” “The Veil,” the forthcoming “Imperfect Women”). And she’s become a mother, changing her relationship to a character whose decision-making is governed by her desire to be reunited with her daughter.

Moss met with Variety at the production office for “Imperfect Women” on the Fox lot to discuss her journey with the Emmy-winning series and saying goodbye to June.

What has it been like to grow so enmeshed in the production of the series, as star, producer, and director?

It’s funny, because I never intended to be as involved in the show as I became. Somehow from the very beginning with Bruce [Miller] and Warren [Littlefield] including me in stuff, I became involved on this really, really detailed level from episode one. And that just carried on for nine years. [pops cough drop] I’m not crying, I’m having a moment. Don’t write “She gets emotional.”

It’s not a part of my life, this show — it has been my life for nine years. I’m so close to it, and so close to June that I don’t know how to talk about it, because there’s no separation.

Did the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade create a new urgency on set?

It was already pretty urgent. But it’s hard to imagine — we’ve never made this show in a world that hasn’t been the world that we’ve made it in. We don’t know what it would have felt like to have made a fantastical show that was unfathomable. The only way we’ve ever made this show was to have this sense of immediacy and relevancy that is not pleasant but is definitely galvanizing.

The way I watched this show changed after I became a parent. I imagine this is even more true for you as regards working on it.

Of course it all meant something before I had a child. I was able to think about my family, my brother, and imagine what it would all feel like. I feel like I did a good job. But I cannot believe the difference this final season, and I had no idea that was going to happen. I can’t watch certain scenes. When a person used to come up to me and say, “I just had a baby, and I can’t watch the show,” I had a little judgment, like, “Oh, God, get over it.” Now, I totally get it. There are concepts I can’t think about; there are articles I can’t read in the news.

When you’re a parent, your feelings around your specific child are so primal.

Another word I’ve used is “visceral.” Choices I made as a director and as an actor are definitely different. There are many, many things I’m grateful for about having her in my life, but it’s been an additional blessing that I didn’t anticipate, being able to take that into the final season.

How has directing “The Handmaid’s Tale” changed your relationship with acting?

I have more respect for acting than I did before. When I first started directing, I was very much like, I’m going to be a visual person. The first thing I learned on my first episode is that the performance is the only thing that matters. I love acting so much, but I don’t overthink it; frankly, I don’t put a lot of thinking into it at all. It’s very important to me, but it’s not serious. So, realizing that nothing mattered except the performance was a revelation for me.

Max Minghella told me that, as a director, you’re very drawn to spectacle.

After I did my first episode, he said to me, “You need to go direct a ‘Batman’ movie.” I was so complimented! I love sci-fi, horror. I’m not going to do two people in a cabin.

What did being brought in at a very high level as EP and director do for your sense of your future potential?

There could not have been a better scenario for me to start. I’ve never directed anything in my life before. I don’t even know how to operate Instagram videos. It was because of Bruce and Warren. We used to call us the Triangle — I was a part of all the decisions that we made on the show. Before I started Season 2, Warren called me and said, even though I wasn’t supposed to be an executive producer until Season 3, he said, “We’re going to make you an EP in Season 2, because that’s the job you’re doing.”

By the time we got to Season 3, it was like, “I should maybe direct at some point, right?” We almost did it in Season 3, but it wasn’t going to be the best thing for the schedule. So, Season 4 came along, and we’d thought about it for so long that it didn’t feel like a big leap. It felt like a lateral move.

You’ve been in feature films; you’re currently at work on a limited series. But long-running shows change you in a different way. After two long chapters of your professional life defined by two hit shows, could you ever fathom taking on that kind of commitment again?

I can’t imagine not having that experience again in my life. To me, it is the most rewarding. I grew up doing television — “Picket Fences” was my first show. It took me a few years to go, ‘You really do fucking love this.’ Talking about “Mad Men,” you don’t get an episode like “The Suitcase” unless you’ve done 40-something episodes before that. There’s something about the structure that I love so much. I’m not directing on this show [“Imperfect Women”] because of needing to spend time with my child, but I will be just as involved as a producer as on anything else. To do something for multiple seasons, that’s my wheelhouse, and I don’t know how to not be involved to the point that I have been — I don’t know how to do it.

You’re going to be an executive producer on “The Testaments,” the follow-up series. Is that a daunting thought, given that you’d seem to have an opportunity to leave Gilead behind?

Actually, I feel so grateful for it. I would be in a much sadder headspace. There’s something about the fact that it’s not over — that is very, very good for me.

[Spoilers for the series finale follow.]

I want to talk about the tie back to the pilot in the final scene, with June narrating what she sees around her in what is now the ruined home of the Waterfords, beginning the work of writing her memoir — the book known as “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Had that always been the plan?

I don’t know when Bruce came up with it — I haven’t asked him, which is kind of funny. I don’t think it was there from the very beginning. But I love this ending. As someone who has lived telling this story for nine years, I can’t imagine it ending any other way. When she starts to say, “A chair, a table, a lamp”… That moment, for the audience, is something I crave. “Is that the original voiceover? Is that the way the book starts?” For me, that is television gold. I would never have said yes to anything that I did not feel was exactly the way that series should end.

I’m sure that’s true.

It is. This whole series has always been about the same thing. It’s the same thing that I fell in love with in the first episode, and the reason I said yes to it, and it’s the same story we’re telling in the final scene. It’s about how this woman will never, ever give up fighting for her children. That has been her story from the beginning, and it’s her story in the final scene. The fact that what she starts with is what she ends with, to me, is so fucking genius. And I can say that, because it’s not my idea. To me, there is no better way to say what the show is than her telling her story.