Why Elis­a­beth Moss is our favourite actress right now

There’s a scene in the third episode of The Handmaid’s Tale that encap­su­lates the show’s strength – and that strength stems from the unique and intox­i­cat­ing bril­liance of Elis­a­beth Moss. It’s a qui­et moment in which June (Moss), her best friend and her hus­band casu­al­ly pon­der the dete­ri­o­ra­tion of the soci­ety they belong to. With their bank accounts frozen and no legal right to own prop­er­ty, women are being forced into grad­ual sub­servience at the hands of a patri­ar­chal superstructure.

Over the course of the con­ver­sa­tion, Moss man­ages to con­vey a qui­et ter­ror while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly enter­tain­ing a sort of wry irony – it’s the sto­ic, famil­iar sort of irony put for­ward by strong women in the face of dan­ger. This is where her genius lies. That com­bi­na­tion of fear and defi­ance is so pal­pa­ble and so authen­tic that you can’t help but imag­ine it etched onto the faces of women you know.

Adapt­ing Mar­garet Atwood’s fem­i­nist clas­sic ​‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ was always going to prove thorny ground; the nov­el rose quick­ly to cult clas­sic sta­tus, which meant that the TV adap­ta­tion was nev­er short of expec­ta­tions to live up to. In Trump’s era, a dystopi­an soci­ety bal­anc­ing pre­car­i­ous­ly on a foun­da­tion of polit­i­cal unrest, ter­ror and scare­mon­ger­ing nev­er seems a far cry from reality.

On the sub­ject of the show’s dark sub­ject mat­ter, Moss explained that, ​“you can’t have dark for dark’s sake… it was impor­tant that we could show the two sides of the coin, the dark and the light. And that as far down as you take these char­ac­ters you can bring them back up and you can give them hope.”

Indeed, what’s ulti­mate­ly com­pelling about this show is not its uncom­fort­able premise, stun­ning cin­e­matog­ra­phy or mas­ter­ful sto­ry­telling – it’s watch­ing Moss offer a per­for­mance with­in a per­for­mance. She’s always a fear­less June, hid­ing behind the blank mask of a sub­servient hand­maid. It’s her com­plex­i­ty, the dark and the light, that both anchors and ele­vates this hyp­not­ic dra­ma, sin­gle­hand­ed­ly estab­lish­ing it as one of 2017’s most fas­ci­nat­ing tele­vi­su­al offerings.

An unashamed and self-pro­fessed ​“card-car­ry­ing fem­i­nist”, it’s heart­en­ing to watch Moss choose her projects accord­ing­ly. She affords an unspo­ken integri­ty to the women she embod­ies on screen, each time bal­anc­ing strength and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to cre­ate the kind of female char­ac­ters wor­thy of dig­ging one’s teeth into. At just 15, she appeared in Girl, Inter­rupt­ed along­side Winona Ryder and Angeli­na Jolie. At 17, she became the president’s daugh­ter in Sorkin’s hit The West Wing. And since then? Stage shows, indie films, Hol­ly­wood block­busters, TV minis­eries – you name it, Moss has con­sis­tent­ly delivered.

In her role as New Zealand’s detec­tive Robin Grif­fin in Jane Campion’s bril­liant Top of the Lake, she offers yet anoth­er career-alter­ing per­for­mance. She picked up a well-deserved Gold­en Globe for her lead role in the show, the sec­ond sea­son of which pre­miered at the 2017 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. As a local detec­tive back home to vis­it her ail­ing moth­er, Grif­fin quick­ly becomes ensnared in a miss­ing per­sons case that she can’t help but shake, even after she’s left the precinct. Old demons resur­face and dra­ma ensues. Once more, the char­ac­ter is refresh­ing­ly mul­ti­fac­eted: self­ish, kind, calm, smart, and over­whelm­ing­ly naturalistic.

Ever since she breathed life into Mad Men’s Peg­gy, Moss has con­sis­tent­ly been the best part of the projects she’s involved in – and still, watch­ing her nev­er feels as though she has any­thing to prove. Mas­ter­ing the dif­fi­cult art of say­ing a lot while doing seem­ing­ly lit­tle, here is an actor that is under­stat­ed­ly assertive, allow­ing the qual­i­ty of her work to speak author­i­ta­tive­ly on her behalf. And despite the impres­sive list of cred­its to her name, it feels as though she’s just get­ting started.