After spending nearly a decade in the dark world of Gilead as a star The Handmaid’s TaleElisabeth Moss for some lighter — though still killer — fare.
The actress is developing an adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel Incomplete women Set in 2019, following three old friends whose lives are turned upside down when one of them is murdered and secrets begin to be revealed.
It wasn’t Moss’ specific plan for it to be the series maid follow-up — as the project faced delays due to the pandemic and Hollywood strikes — “but I knew I wanted to do something completely different than maid“And more fun and entertainment and more water cooler displays,” she said. Hollywood Reporter At the show’s Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday.
Moss confirmed the change of pace: “I’m not going to lie, it’s beautiful.” “Shooting in Los Angeles in the summer versus Toronto in the winter, it’s not bad. I definitely had moments where we shot in beautiful homes, in beautiful restaurants, and these beautiful locations, and I would definitely turn to the people I worked with as well.” maid Who were part of my team and they were like, “This is so different from the woods in the middle of the night and the snow.”
Also serving as executive producer and star, Moss brought on Kerry Washington and Kate Mara to complete the series’ trio, with showrunner Annie Weisman noting that she was surprised by the roles Moss wanted to play “because it wasn’t what I expected given her recent work.” She was already looking for a change, and Weissman added that Moss “really wanted to work with other actresses that she admired, which she doesn’t usually get to do that. She’s usually the lead, and she usually has a man, but working with people of her caliber in an ensemble, that was attractive to her, too.”
Mara has been a longtime fan of Moss and has known Washington since she was a teenager, while Washington — who is also a member of the European Parliament — joked that when Moss contacted her, “I said, ‘Oh my God, I hope the material is good because I really want to work with her.'”
Moss’ plan from the beginning was to bring together “three women who had all led their own shows and give them a show where they could each hold the ball for a period of time,” she noted, with the series structured as two episodes from each woman’s point of view. “You don’t see that very often; you see a group of women or something more split across episodes, but to have almost three shows in one show and then a fourth show that includes all of us is something you don’t really get.”
The team also decided to make some changes between book and screen, including setting the story in Los Angeles and adjusting how everything ended. “We wanted to make sure that people who loved the book still had some exciting surprises to experience,” Washington explained. “We need that audience, we need them to talk and wonder, too.”
imperfect women, Which also stars Joel Kinnaman, Leslie Odom Jr., and Corey Stoll. It begins streaming March 18 on Apple TV.
