By Iain Blair
Elisabeth Moss, who stars as June Osborne in the multi-Emmy Award-winning Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, has made her directing debut in the show’s fourth season. The series tackles very dark themes, including woman as slaves, civil war, economic chaos and power-crazed leaders.
Elisabeth Moss on set
With a large ensemble cast headed by Moss and Joseph Fiennes, the show is based on the dystopian and prescient 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood; the author has noted that everything she wrote about 36 years ago has now happened somewhere in the world today.
I spoke with Moss, who also stars in the upcoming Wes Anderson film The French Dispatch and Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins, about directing the show, post production and visual effects.
Did you always want to direct?
No, not at all. I thought maybe one day I would, if I found a story I knew really well — and it gradually hit me that this was exactly that. Because I’ve been so connected to the show and material for three years, I’ve had three years of prep as a director. Then I did my first episode and realized I’ve been thinking like a director for years. I’ve always thought about camera placement, editing, post, sound — all of it. Originally, I was only meant to do the one episode — Episode 3 — but I enjoyed the experience so much that I thought I should really push myself, especially since everyone really loved it. So when the opportunity came up to also direct Episodes 8 and 9, I just went for it since they’re so different from the first one I directed.
Episode 3: The Crossing
How did you prepare? Did you ask for advice from other directors you’ve worked with? Did The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner Bruce Miller help?
I’ve been studying how they do their job for years, and I’ve worked with so many different kinds of directors. On this show alone you get to work with so many, and I get to see what works and what doesn’t. I did ask Wes Anderson, Ben Stiller, Taika and anyone I could think of for advice, and they all gave pretty similar answers —be super-prepared but also be open to every idea and be prepared for the unexpected.
Like the COVID crisis in the middle of Season 4?
Exactly. We’d started shooting and then had to shut down, and then all the post had to be done remote. I did it from my living room, and it was fine. All the technology, like ClearView, makes it pretty efficient. The bummer is, you’re not in the room with the editor or VFX team, so it’s just different.
Actors spend a lot of time with directors on set, so the move to directing is a trip into fairly familiar territory, but post is a very different process. Was it a steep learning curve?
You’re so right about actors and post, but because I’ve been doing a lot of producing I had a bit more experience with the whole post process. I’ve been involved with post on this show for three years, and I’ve also produced a couple of films, so I’m very familiar it — and I absolutely love it. I love shooting too, but post is probably my favorite part, especially the editing process and working on the sound and then all the VFX.
Episode 8: Testimony
We do all the post at Take 5 Productions in Toronto, which is also where we shoot, and we have a great team of post people. I worked very closely with post supervisor Corrie Gudgeon and post EP Sheila Hockin. It’s like a well-oiled machine.
We do Foley at Footsteps, audio post at Sim Toronto and the DI at Company 3 Toronto. I love the DI process and playing with the look, but I don’t really mess with that too much. The DP works closely with the colorist, Bill Ferwerda, and I have notes, but I rely on their expertise and sign off on that.
[Editor’s Note: We reached out to Ferwerda to find out more. “She has an excellent eye and picks up on some tiny details,” Ferwerda says of Moss. Ferwerda worked closely with Stuart Biddlecombe, who shot a portion of Season 3 and all but one episode of Season 4. “She definitely had a sense of what she wanted visually and communicated her ideas with the cinematographer. After he and I would complete our color passes, she would occasionally ask us to take another look at a shot or scene if something was just not sitting right with her.”]
Episode 8: Testimony
Can you talk about the editing process?
It’s a very tight schedule on our show, so I’m shooting and editing at the same time. I worked with two amazing editors — Wendy Hallam Martin, who cut Episode 3 and Episode 8, and Chris Donaldson, who cut Episode 9. When Wendy handed me her assemblies, I was like, “Wow! You could just air them as is.” I had some notes, but they’re both so good and experienced and know the story inside out.
Chris is a very different kind of editor, much more exploratory, and the way he cut the final scene in Episode 9 was like he’d gone into my brain. It was exactly how I’d pictured it and wanted it to look, with all the jump cuts and the distorted sound — although in the end, we pulled it back a bit.
On Episode 3, I had storyboarded a lot of it because of all the VFX, and I’d cut a lot of it in my head before we even got to post and the edit, and Wendy was so good at being able to see what I wanted to do from the coverage I gave her. That whole process truly opened me up to all the possibilities, and to see how you can develop a scene purely in the edit.
Episode 3: The Crossing
There are quite a few VFX, and some are really big. How steep was the learning curve for you?
That was a steep learning curve, even though we don’t usually use a ton of VFX on the show. Mavericks VFX does them all, and I worked very closely with our VFX supervisor Stephen Lebed. Also, we had a VFX on-set supervisor, Brendan Taylor, for all that to make sure it ran smoothly.
We augment a lot of shots and do a fair amount of cleanup and fixes, but we don’t usually do huge VFX set pieces. But this year we did some really big VFX stuff, especially in Episode 3, and that was a first for me. I storyboarded this whole rooftop sequence, and we used a lot of previz with Brendan. I love that part because you can look at all the camera angles and really plan the sequence out. And Lebed, as we call him, was phenomenal and so helpful, considering I’d never shot or directed anything with really heavy VFX before.
Did you like working with VFX?
I loved it! It’s super-intense but so much fun, and you can create anything you want. I love that it’s so available now and not just for huge superhero movies or Star Wars-type films. You can use them to create Fenway Park in Boston, as we did earlier on this show, or Chicago or some war-torn scene. I loved learning about all the tools and software and bluescreen and creating set extensions and combining plates with CGI. I had an almost 360-degree bluescreen for the rooftop sequence. It was awesome to walk on the set and see how massive it was.
Elisabeth Moss directing Episode 8: Testimony
Fair to say that Atwood’s book and its themes seem timelier than ever?
I’d say so. She kept connecting the global and political to the personal, and we have this whole backdrop, but we’re looking at it through the eyes of a mother, a wife, a husband, a friend. It’s always through a personal lens, and that lets us stay relevant and timely.
Do you want to direct more now?
Absolutely, I’d love to direct more — and not just on this show, but maybe a movie or another TV project.
How’s it going with your production company, which has the awesome name of Love & Squalor Pictures?
It’s going great. We’re in development on a number of projects, including Shining Girls, a metaphysical thriller series at Apple TV+, which is just about to start shooting in Chicago. We’ll probably do all the post for that in LA.
Industry insider Iain Blair has been interviewing the biggest directors in Hollywood and around the world for years. He is a regular contributor to Variety and has written for such outlets as Reuters, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe.
