Elisabeth Moss Needed Enjoyable After Handmaid’s Tale. Cue Imperfect Women

After spending practically a decade at midnight world of Gilead as star of The Handmaid’s Tale, Elisabeth Moss is onto some lighter — although nonetheless murderous — fare.

The actress has been creating an adaptation of Araminta Hall’s novel Imperfect Women since 2019, following three longtime associates whose lives are upended when one in all them is murdered and secrets and techniques begin to be uncovered.

It wasn’t Moss’ particular plan to have the collection be her Handmaid’s follow-up — because the challenge confronted delays as a result of pandemic and Hollywood strikes — “but I did know that I wanted to do something very different from Handmaid’s, and much more fun and much more entertaining and more of a water cooler show,” she informed The Hollywood Reporter on the present’s L.A. premiere on Tuesday.

“Not going to lie, it’s nice,” Moss confirmed of the change of tempo. “Shooting in L.A. in the summer versus Toronto in the winter, it’s not bad. I definitely had moments where we shot in beautiful houses, in beautiful restaurants, these lovely locations, and I was definitely would turn to people that I also worked with on Handmaid’s that were part of my team and was like, ‘This is very different than the woods in the middle of the night and the snow.’”

Serving as an government producer in addition to star, Moss introduced in Kerry Washington and Kate Mara to finish the collection’ trio, as showrunner Annie Weisman famous she was stunned by which of the roles Moss needed to play “because it wasn’t what I expected given her recent work.” She was certainly in search of a shake-up, although, and Wesiman added Moss “really wanted to work with other actresses that she was a fan of, she doesn’t usually get to do that. She’s usually the lead, usually has a guy, but to work with people of her caliber in ensemble, that was really appealing to her too.”

Mara has been a longtime fan of Moss and identified Washington since they have been since youngsters, whereas Washington — who can be an EP — joked that when Moss gave her a name, “I was like, ‘Oh God, I hope the material’s good because I really want to work with her.’”

It was Moss’ plan from the begin to convey collectively “three women who have all led their own shows and give them a show where they each get to kind of carry the ball for a while,” she famous, because the collection is structured with a few episodes from every girl’s perspective. “You don’t see that very often; you see an ensemble of women or something that’s more split throughout the episodes, but to get almost three shows in one show and then a fourth show that has all of us in it is something you don’t really get.”

The workforce additionally determined to make some modifications between the guide and display, together with setting the story in L.A. and tweaking the way it all involves an finish. Washington defined, “We wanted to make sure that people who loved the book still had some exciting surprises to experience. We need that audience, we need them to be talking and wondering too.”

Imperfect Women, which additionally stars Joel Kinnaman, Leslie Odom Jr. and Corey Stoll, begins streaming March 18 on Apple TV.