Moviemaker – Winter 2019

55

FROM PRESTIGE TV

AND AUTEUR CINEMA

TO HER SMELL

WRITER-DIRECTOR

ALEX ROSS PERRY’S

LEAD AND PRODUCER,

MOSS IS HAPPIEST

WHEN SHE’S TRYING

SOMETHING NEW

BY CALUM MARSH

MAN CUTS THROUGH the

bustling crew and stands in

the center of the room, a

bottle of champagne held

aloft. “Let’s hear it for our

nominees,” he shouts, and

everyone stops what they are doing to

gather around. Elisabeth Moss has just

been nominated for a Golden Globe, as

has Yvonne Strahovski, her co-star in the

Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, which

they are filming here this afternoon on a

soundstage on the far west side of Toronto.

Corks pop; a P.A. has brought more bottles.

Applause thunders. There is much cheer-

ing and whistling, plastic party cups filled

and passed from hand to hand. Amid the

commotion Moss slips away—out into the

December cold, a heavy winter coat thrown

over her shoulders.

She invites me into her trailer and sits by

the entrance with the door propped open.

I can see her breath. She lights a cigarette,

rests her elbows on her knees. “Let’s talk,”

she says, smiling in a flamboyant costume

of dystopian-future garb.

Elisabeth Moss is a television actor.

There was a time, not long ago, when saying

that would have been an insult—the same

insult Sean Penn once whispered to a

furious Michael J. Fox on the set of

Casualties of War, by the standards of 1989

an unforgivable cruelty. But television has

changed. It is no longer true that the stars

of network sitcoms and cable dramas la-

ment their sorry luck as they aspire to the

glory of the silver screen, languishing in

the ghetto of undignified prime-time. This

is the golden age of TV, an age of prestige

whose light has cast countless faces into the

firmament. Moss has helped redefine what

it means to be on television, what level of

regard is accorded a TV star, what sort of

reputation. A role on a hit series is not a

stopgap anymore. Thanks in part to Moss,

it’s a coveted prize, an achievement worthy

of a career.

I’ve come to see Moss on the set of

her latest TV sensation, the acclaimed,

much-decorated adaptation of the famous

Margaret Atwood novel. But we are not

here to talk about television. We are here

to talk about her new movie: Her Smell, an

abrasive and acerbic Riot grrrl rock drama

by writer-director Alex Ross Perry, which

A

« RIOT ACT: ELISABETH MOSS (R),

GAYLE RANKIN (C), AND AGYNESS DEYN LIGHT UP

WRITER-DIRECTOR ALEX ROSS PERRY’S HER SMELL

AS THE MEMBERS OF SOMETHING SHE, A RIOT

COURTESY OF GUNPOWDER & SKYGRRRL-ESQUE PUNK BAND