Elisabeth Moss On Life, Work After ‘Mad Men’
Elisabeth Moss, and the cast of Mad Men, just completed their seventh and final season. So, what’s an actress to do now? Elisabeth Moss goes back to work.
SFGate is reporting Moss was on the set of a new relationship movie, The One I Love, not two days after Mad Men had wrapped up for good. “It’s one of those things where you read something you like and take a risk and hope it comes out the way you want it to come out,” Moss said of her film The One I Love, which co-stars Moss’ longtime friend Mark Duplass.
“I finished Mad Men and started this two days after, so it was a pretty quick turnaround. I knew that there was going to be collaboration and that I would have a lot of input, but I didn’t realize how much I was going to be a part of it. We shot in 15 days, and it was a really fast experience.”
“We’re really excited that this movie turned out well. I’m really proud of it.”
The film, written by Justin Lader and directed by Charlie McDowell, both making their feature debut, is about a couple that is having marital problems. Their therapist (Ted Danson in a small but vital role) suggests they spend a weekend at a house in the country, which they do. What happens there is a kind of magical realism, a little Twilight Zone-ish.
“Every person at some point in a relationship, whether it’s after three months or 20 years, goes through that thing of ‘Do we fight for it, or do we cut our losses?'” said Moss, who might have gone through something similar during her brief marriage to Fred Armisen. “This couple in the film is at that point where they’re not sure which direction to go. Any couple is going to identify with that.”
According to USA Today, when asked about ending Mad Men after seven seasons, how the cast responded to the end, Moss said “we approached it head on. No one ran away from their feelings. We got through it together and really said goodbye in a way that was very cathartic for all of us.”
When asked what props, if any, Moss was able to acquire, Moss said, “The two most important things were the ring I’ve worn in every single episode for seven seasons, and the red thermos that Peggy takes from job to job,” she says, grinning. “I got that. I got my purple chair. I got a typewriter. I got everything!”
Moss is then asked what were her favorite lines or scenes, and she becomes introspective, then lists two scenes. The first “was on season 7A: When Peggy’s talking about how she’s at this place in her life that she wanted to get to and she feels like she’s done everything that she’s supposed to do. And she’s basically asking Don and asking the universe, what did I do wrong? I feel like that’s such a universal question that we’ve all asked at some point in our lives. And I had more response from that line than I’ve ever had in seven seasons of Mad Men,” Moss says. “People texting me, emailing me, saying how much they connected to that idea.”
The other? “Just one word in Season 4,” says Moss. “When she says, ‘playgrounds’ when she’s talking about what makes her think of her baby that she gave away. That was my favorite for a long time.”
