When the TV adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Story” first premiered on Hulu in 2017, only a few months after Donald Trump was sworn in as president for the primary time, its dystopian backdrop of a fictional U.S. run by a faction of ultra-conservative, spiritual elite appeared safely distant. However eight years later, because the acclaimed sequence involves an in depth with its sixth and ultimate season, the horrors of Gilead and its handmaids really feel alarmingly shut at hand.
Over the seasons, the solid of regulars and visitor stars who performed Gilead’s commanders, wives, marthas, and handmaids — girls pressured into sexual slavery and tasked with repopulating the polluted regime — have infused “The Handmaid’s Story” with life. However the sequence’ star, government producer, and typically director, Elisabeth Moss, has been its beating coronary heart.
As June, who’s renamed Offred per Gilead’s customized, Moss delivers a studied, devastating portrayal of a girl radicalized by her oppressors — one who ultimately trades the handmaids’ signature crimson cloak for weapons and revolutionary garb. As a producer, she’s been the face of the undertaking for practically a decade, showing on press excursions season after season and changing into an everyday on the Emmys, the place she cheered on the present’s many nominees. And behind the digital camera, she helmed a variety of pivotal episodes, together with the Season 5 finale, which aired in fall 2022 and earned her the dignity of directing the primary two and final two episodes of Season 6.
Within the ultimate season opener, which premiered in early April, Moss picked up proper the place she left off in Season 5, with June and her former tormenter Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) going through one another on a prepare full of refugees who’re being shuttled out west to an unsure future. Over the course of the primary two episodes, she laid the groundwork for the remainder of the season, which has devoted extra time than standard to the inside lives of peripheral characters like June’s love pursuits, Nick (Max Minghella) and Luke (O-T Fagbenle), and fellow Gilead survivors, Moira (Samira Wiley) and Rita (Amanda Brugel).
Beneath the helm of the season’s different administrators, the ultimate chapter of “The Handmaid’s Story” additionally gave display time to June’s more and more militant, righteous marketing campaign in opposition to Gilead — the place human rights violations had been nonetheless establishment regardless of reforms proposed by Commander Lawrence (Bradley Whitford). And in Tuesday’s propulsive penultimate episode, “Execution,” Moss took up that mantle, placing her character’s campaign totally in focus whereas bidding a tear-filled farewell to 2 fan favorites and setting the stage for a memorable, action-packed ultimate installment. With loads of unfastened ends but to be wrapped up, Moss, who’s teased massive manufacturing moments and an emotion-inducing conclusion for the sequence’ heroine, appears poised to ship some critical thrills.
Although Moss might be concerned to some extent within the forthcoming spin-off sequence “The Testaments,” when subsequent week’s finale airs, it’ll be time for her to say goodbye to “The Handmaid’s Story.” And whereas she could also be prepared to maneuver on, not uttering “underneath his eye” entails extra than simply hanging up her costumes and dimming the lights on set.
“It has not been part of my life; this present has been my life for the final 9 years — greater than anybody will ever know,” Moss advised IndieWire in a dialog forward of the ultimate episodes.
Throughout that dialog, beneath, Moss elaborated on her years engaged on “The Handmaid’s Story” and the way they in contrast along with her time on “Mad Males,” how she approached the daunting process of bringing the farewell season to an in depth, and her favourite moments from the ultimate season — together with Tuesday evening’s gripping, titular execution.
The next interview has been edited and condensed for readability.
IndieWire: Was it the plan for some time so that you can direct the opening and shutting episodes of the ultimate season?
Elisabeth Moss: I really feel like we determined that between Season 5 and 6, truthfully. I believe that if I had not achieved an excellent job with the tip of Season 5, then I could not have been requested again to do the sequence finale. So it positively had not been determined earlier than then.
Effectively, it does really feel like fairly an honor.
It’s an unbelievable honor. Actually, as soon as a day, I might be, like, “I can not consider they’re letting me direct the finale of this sequence.” [Laughing] There’s so many nice administrators on the market, so the truth that I acquired to do it, I simply by no means acquired used to it.
As a director and producer, going into this season, was there something — thematically or with particular characters — that you just felt, like, OK, that is my final likelihood to get this throughout?
A lot — like, with each character and each dynamic. However you need to watch out to not attempt to tie every little thing up with a bow — to convey every little thing to a passable conclusion — as a result of then it simply seems like a finale episode, you realize?
I believe that I actually wished to have the Luke-June-Nick dynamic explored extra, and never essentially in a manner of she’s selecting this individual or that individual, however simply attending to see extra of Luke and June collectively, attending to see what was going to occur with Nick and June, and getting extra into Nick and Luke’s headspace. And with Samira, as effectively, there was an actual feeling of wanting to offer her the stage a bit this season. I imply, I don’t write the present, however I do know just a little bit about how [the writers] felt, and I understand how I felt.
However on the identical time, you need to give all people their time and their due within the ultimate season.
Talking of Nick, June faces quite a lot of betrayal this season by sure males that she’s come to belief. And the emotions that we’ve had for them over the previous few seasons are actually put to the take a look at. Do you assume the present, basically, provides a much less sympathetic eye to imperfect males than to imperfect girls?
I don’t know. That means we go simpler on the ladies? I don’t assume so.
Let’s speak about Serena, then. The dynamic between June and Serena is de facto central to the present. Has that relationship and taking part in reverse Yvonne outlined the sequence in some methods for you?
Yeah, I positively assume so. I believe that’s why it’s onerous for me to reply that earlier query, which I’m intrigued by as a result of I don’t know if I’ve ever actually been requested that. I take a look at these characters they usually’re so sophisticated — they’re so not black and white — that it’s onerous for me to see them as sympathetic or not. I simply take a look at them as these well-rounded individuals.
I don’t know if Serena is extra imperfect or flawed than Nick. And I don’t know if we’re nicer to Nick, or are we nicer to Serena? I don’t know. I take a look at them as actual individuals with actual lives, who’re making actual errors and actual decisions.
Yeah, that is smart.
After which, tying that into the Serena-June query, they’re such an integral a part of the present. Like, they are the present, for me. They’re the yin and the yang; they’re the sunshine and the darkish. They trip as to who has the facility and who’s in cost. They’ve these parallel paths, and typically one is profitable and typically the opposite’s profitable.
To me, they’re the central love story of the present. I really feel like they are surely each these imperfect individuals. Simply because Serena’s extra usually the villain, I don’t assume that June is any extra good than she is.
And this will not even be the purpose, however do you assume that folks will discover catharsis within the ultimate episodes?
I can inform you this: Once I watched the ultimate shot of the [finale], which is the take that’s within the episode, it’s the one time I cried on set throughout the ultimate block, throughout Episodes 9 and 10. It’s the one time I acquired emotional off-camera. As a result of, you realize, you’re doing a job. It’s an enormous accountability directing the ultimate episodes of the sequence, and there’s no time to be pondering, ‘Oh, my God, I can’t consider it’s ending!’
It’s very, very completely different from my expertise on “Mad Males.” I had tons of time to be self-indulgent on that. I didn’t have time on this one, however there was one second once I did cry, and that was watching that final take. And I believe it’s simply because I mentioned to myself, and I turned to my DP and I mentioned to him, “That’s how this present is meant to finish.”
So I can’t converse to what different individuals are going to assume. I do not know. And we’re by no means going to make everybody joyful. However as the one who performs June — as the one who’s been closest to this present for the previous 9 years, who has actually lived and breathed it — it’s how this present is meant to finish. I simply don’t know if that’s going to be cathartic.
Watching interviews, it actually struck me that everybody concerned appears glad with how the present ends, which is saying quite a bit. Clearly, it’s an enormous process to wrap up a sequence like this.
Yeah, that was essential to me. Because the director of the ultimate episode, I actually wished to have the assist of your entire staff behind me — not be alone on the market.
I keep in mind I talked to all people in regards to the ending, in regards to the final script and the final episode. And I used to be fairly clear with everybody, like, “This must be one thing that all of us need. All of us want to face collectively on this and love this ending.” [I asked,] “Does this make us all really feel the way in which that we need to really feel on the finish of this sequence?” And all of us sort of held palms, metaphorically, and had been, like, “Yeah, that is it.”
And I’ve gotten suggestions in regards to the ultimate two episodes and the ultimate episode that I by no means anticipated — from people who I by no means thought I might hear from. It’s been so unanimously constructive that even I used to be stunned. I imply, I prefer it. However I’m so joyful that everybody else has had the [emotional response] they’ve had, as a result of it’s not at all times the case. Typically, you don’t hear from individuals and also you’re like, “OK, I assume both they didn’t reply to it or they weren’t moved sufficient to achieve out.” On Episode 10, I’ve heard from individuals who, like I mentioned, I by no means anticipated to listen to from.
That’s an enormous vote of confidence.
I hope so. Like I mentioned, you’re by no means going to have the ability to please all people, however that’s not what we’re out right here to do. We simply really feel like this was the way in which the June story ends. That is her story.
Did the ultimate episode — these previous couple of moments of the sequence — find yourself being your favourite of the season? Or are there different moments that come to thoughts that felt actually compelling?
That was positively a prime second in entrance of and behind the digital camera. And I believe that, for me, it’s at all times about what we find yourself engaging in, not essentially what [happens] within the second, that feels satisfying. If we hadn’t gotten that ultimate shot proper, then it might not have been a favourite second. There’s a scene in Episode 9 that took us 4 days to movie. It was the biggest scene we’ve ever achieved — budgetarily, location-wise, background-wise, every little thing. If that hadn’t gone effectively, it might not have been one in every of my favourite scenes.
And the prepare scene — that was actually, actually onerous. We prepped that for months and months and months and months. It took so lengthy to determine which a part of the prepare we had been going to make use of and the way we had been going to do it. You see an episode on a prepare, and also you’re, like, “It’s simply on the prepare. That must be comparatively easy.” And it’s, like, “Nope! You haven’t any thought!” [sounding exasperated] Simply to get to some extent the place you’re not noticing how onerous it’s takes a lot work.
So the truth that we completed that stuff, these are my favourite moments of the season.
Aside from it being the ultimate season and every little thing that comes with that, did making Season 6 really feel tougher given every little thing occurring on the planet proper now? Or has making each season felt heavy?
The expertise of creating this present is so completely different from what you see. We have now such a good time. We have now so many great individuals on set who’re humorous and wonderful and doing their greatest work and actually attempting to push themselves. And that’s why individuals who come and work on our present, like visitor actors, are, like, “Oh, my god, that is the very best set to be on!”
We wouldn’t have a heavy work atmosphere; that’s not one thing that folks join. I perceive that the expertise watching it’s clearly a lot darker, as a result of that’s the subject material, and that’s what we intend. However our expertise and my expertise of the final 9 years has been so completely different.
The sequence finale of “The Handmaid’s Story” streams Tuesday, Might 27 on Hulu.