Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss nearly rejected her career-defining role on The Handmaid’s Tale for one reason. “That was a unique situation,” Moss, 43, admitted to Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live on Sunday.
After nine seasons as driven secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson on AMC’s Mad Men, Moss was ready for a change. Immediately after wrapping the show’s final episode in 2015, however, she was offered a new role that would consume another large portion of her career.
“That was right after Mad Men—it was literally right after—and I wasn’t expecting to do another series so quickly because I’d done that for nine years," the actress said of her Hulu show, The Handmaid’s Tale. “So, it was just a very quick, ‘Wow, we’re doing that! And we’re signing that contract,’ kind of thing.”
The lead role of June Osborne, which would earn her a Best Actress Emmy win after seven winless nominations for Mad Men, was nearly played by another actress.
“I almost turned it down, and then they threatened me with who they were going to ask next,” Moss said, turning to Cohen, 57.
“I will tell you after, but I will not tell any of you,” she said, pointing to the audience. “And I was like, ‘No, way!’”
Moss said she couldn’t let the role go to anyone else, especially not to the actress they had named, so she took it.
Like her co-star Jon Hamm, who received 11 nominations before securing his first Emmy, Moss was nominated for all but two seasons of Mad Men, but never won. The Handmaid’s Tale would earn her two wins and a further six nominations, including one as an executive producer.
“I would have to imagine that in your career, that was maybe the most important decision that you’ve had to make. How do I follow up this incredible run? What do I do next?” Cohen remarked.
“It was after Mad Men, it was like, ‘How do you follow that?’" Moss recalled thinking.
“And look at how you follow that. I mean, it was just an incredible pivot,” Cohen concluded.
While Moss has appeared in a handful of films, including The Invisible Man, The One I Love, and Us, those two shows have dominated her acting career for close to two decades.
She began filming Mad Men in April 2006, and The Handmaid’s Tale wrapped its sixth and final season last May. Luckily for Moss, her current Apple TV show Imperfect Women is just an eight-episode miniseries. It premiered on March 18.
