Background

Ethnicity: Moss is of English, Swedish, German, and Austrian descent.

Elisabeth Moss was born on 24 July 1982, in Los Angeles, California, the United States, to musician parents Ron and Linda Moss. Moss has one younger brother. Moss describes herself as being a "serious, focused" child. Growing up in a show business family, Moss says she always wanted to be a performer.

Education

Born in Los Angeles, California, to musician parents, she grew up aspiring to be a performer and a professional dancer. She moved to New York City to train as a ballet dancer and attended classes for the same. Soon, she began to get offers for acting and learned to balance both education and career from a very young age.

Moss was home-schooled by a private tutor and managed to graduate from high school two years early, in 1999, at the age of 16.

Career

Moss's first screen role was in 1990 when she appeared in the NBC miniseries Lucky Chances. At the age of 10, Moss did get her breakthrough part, playing Baby Louise opposite Bette Midler in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Gypsy.

At 16, Moss landed a role opposite an Oscar-winning Angelina Jolie in the film Girl, Interrupted. Moss was so convincing as Polly, a teenage burn victim, that throughout filming costar Whoopi Goldberg believed she was an actual burn victim hired to play the part. "Whoopi really didn't know - a lot of people didn't, actually," Moss recalls. "But I would forget too, and then look in the mirror and be shocked. And that shocked feeling is right for Polly, the character - she's a child, she does forget about it."

Around the same time, she filmed Girl, Interrupted, Moss also began a long-running role as the president's daughter Zoey Bartlet on the TV series The West Wing. "I played her from when I was 17 to 24, off and on," she says. "That show was so well researched, but obviously I have no idea what it's like to be the president's daughter. I just tried to show a regular girl - with the Secret Service outside her dorm room."

Moss landed her most visible role to date on the AMC series Mad Men in 2007. The show is set in early 1960s New York City and revolves around the employees of Sterling Cooper, an advertising agency on Madison ("Mad") Avenue. Moss plays Peggy Olson, a secretary-turned-copywriter who demands equality with the show's dominant male characters. Moss earned wide acclaim for her portrayal of Peggy, a character whom critics described as a cipher. "I like that they don't understand Peggy," she says. "That makes the performance more interesting."

During her time on Mad Men, Moss earned several Emmy and Golden Globe award nominations for her work on the show, including a 2015 Emmy nomination for Lead Actress in a Drama. The series enjoyed great acclaim throughout its run, winning numerous Golden Globe and Emmy Awards.

In addition to her work on Mad Men, Moss made her Broadway debut in the David Mamet play Speed-the-Plow in 2008. She followed that with an appearance on the big screen opposite Jonah Hill and Russell Brand in the 2010 comedy Get Him to the Greek.

Moss later earned acclaim for her 2013 miniseries Top of the Lake. She played a detective on the show and earned a Golden Globe award for her performance. The following year, Moss co-starred with Mark Duplass in the romantic dramatic comedy The One I Love. They play a couple who takes a weekend away to try to repair their relationship. That same year Moss also starred in the indie film Listen Up Phillip, which was directed by Alex Ross Perry, with whom she would continue to collaborate in the coming years.

In 2015 Moss took to the Broadway stage to appear in the revival of Wendy Wasserstein's hit play The Heidi Chronicles. She received a Tony Award nomination for her work. Later that year she co-starred in the big-screen newsroom drama Truth and in Queen of Earth (another Alex Ross Perry collaboration). In 2016 Moss worked alongside Liev Schreiber in the biopic Chuck, based on pro heavyweight boxer Chuck Wepner's life.

In 2017 the actress began starring in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale, an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 1985 novel about a dystopian future in which fertile women serve an autocratic regime as child-bearing vessels. Moss's performance as Offred, a surrogate attempting to reclaim independence, drew viewers to one of the year's most acclaimed programs, leading to Emmy and Golden Globe wins for her work.

Following the cliffhanging end to season 1 - and the novel - in which a pregnant Offred steps into a van to meet an uncertain fate, the highly anticipated second season debuted in April 2018. Moss seemed eager to discover how fans would handle the events of the new season, telling The Hollywood Reporter after a screening of its premiere that she was there to watch the audience respond to its squirm-inducing final scene.

Season 2 again impressed critics, with Moss garnering Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the second straight year, setting things up for a season 3 launch in June 2019.

In March 2018, it was announced that Moss would headline the cast of The Kitchen, alongside Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish. An adaptation of a comic book series about women who take charge of gang activity after their mobster husbands land in jail, The Kitchen will feature Moss as a timid spouse who discovers a lust for violence.

In 2018, Moss reunited with Alex Ross Perry for Her Smell, portraying the role of a fictional rock star whose band breaks up over her self-destructive behavior, and appeared in The Old Man & the Gun, directed by David Lowery. Both films received positive reviews from critics.

In 2020, Moss will star in The Invisible Man, alongside Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Storm Reid, which is set to be released on March 13, 2020, and will appear in The French Dispatch, directed by Wes Anderson.

Achievements

• Moss is an outstanding actress, whose skills were recognized with such accolades as two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, which led Vulture to name her the "Queen of Peak TV". Also in 2004, Elisabeth Moss won the Director’s Choice Best Actress Award for her performance in the film Virgin (2003).

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Spirit

    (With the help of a spirit who departed the earth years ea...)

    2001
  • Chuck

    (Chuck is the true-life story of Chuck Wepner, a liquor sa...)

    2016
  • Listen Up Philip

    (When a self-obsessed novelist (Jason Schwartzman) has pro...)

    2014
  • The Attic

    (A month after Emma Callan ("Mad Men's" Elisabeth Moss) an...)

    2007
  • Gypsy

    (Bette Midler plays Mama Rose, the ultimate vaudeville sta...)

    1993
  • Mad to be Normal

    (During the 1960s, a renegade Scottish psychiatrist (David...)

    2017
  • Anywhere But Here

    (Fleeing small-Town boredom, a restless mother drags her r...)

    1999
  • The Last Supper

    (A biting black comedy, The Last Supper details the lives ...)

    1995
  • On The Road

    (A timeless story of Sal Paradise, a young writer whose li...)

    2012
  • Her Smell

    (Forced to get sober and reckon with the past, a self-dest...)

    2018
  • El Camino

    (In the wake of their friend Matthew's tragic death, three...)

    2008
  • Girl, Interrupted

    (Winona Ryder and Academy Award(r)-winner Angelina Jolie a...)

    1999
  • Suburban Commando

    (Ordered to take a vacation on Earth, alien Shep Ramsey, a...)

    1991
  • Darling Companion

    (A couple in their golden years reunites with their childr...)

    2012
  • Once Upon A Forest

    (When a toxic spill makes their best pal sick, three lovin...)

    1993
  • A Buddy Story

    (A struggling musician and his lovelorn neighbor set out o...)

    2010
  • Imaginary Crimes

    (A heart-warming comedy/drama, charting the troubled relat...)

    1994
  • Us

    (The visionary behind Get Out returns with an original nig...)

    2019
  • Virgin

    (Virgin is the story of Jessie (Elisabeth Moss), a rebelli...)

    2003
  • Meadowland

    (In the hazy aftermath of an unimaginable loss, couple Sar...)

    2015
  • The One I Love

    (A married couple (Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss) find thei...)

    2014
  • Separate Lives

    (When a murder detective (James Belushi) is asked by an at...)

    1995
  • Day Zero

    (Three young friends are faced with a serious choice when ...)

    2007
  • The Seagull

    (A tragicomedy unfolds when friends and family gather at a...)

    2018
  • Truth

    (Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett star in Truth, based on...)

    2015
  • Get Him to the Greek

    (A young music exec has three days to transport a washed-u...)

    2010
  • Did You Hear About the Morgans?

    (Two successful New Yorkers, Paul (Grant) and Meryl (Parke...)

    2009
  • The Missing

    (In the desolate wilderness of New Mexico, an estranged fa...)

    2003
  • The Old Man & The Gun

    (Robert Redford stars as a gentlemanly geriatric bank robb...)

    2018
  • Green Lantern: Emerald Knights

    (An anthology of 6 tales that show Hal Jordan and the Gree...)

    2011
  • The Free World

    (An Ex-Con attempts to start a new life only to be sucked ...)

    2016
  • Bar Girls

    (A feisty, funny and honest look at the mating dance in a ...)

    1990
  • A Thousand Acres

    (A widely acclaimed motion picture about silence and betra...)

    1997
  • New Orleans Mon Amour

    (Against the backdrop of post-Katrina New Orleans, Dr. Hen...)

    2008
  • The Square

    (Academy Award Nominee for best foreign language film. A r...)

    2017
  • Mumford

    (When a would-be psychologist, curiously named Dr. Mumford...)

    1999
  • High-Rise

    (Tom Hiddleston stars as Dr. Laing, resident in a high-tec...)

    2015
  • Earthly Possessions

    (Susan Sarandon. A lonely housewife falls for a charming c...)

    1999

• TV series

  • Top of the Lake

    (A powerful and haunting story from Oscar winning writer/d...)

    2013
  • The West Wing

    (Go behind the scenes and experience the inner workings of...)

    1999
  • Mad Men

    (Mad Men is an American period drama television series cre...)

    2007

Religion

While Moss has managed to avoid controversy for most of her time in the public eye, there's one aspect of her life that has received considerable scrutiny from both her fans and the press. Moss is a well-known member of the infamous Church of Scientology and has been since childhood. Moss has remained mostly quiet about her association with Scientology, presumably due to the bad press that the Church has garnered over the years. After a fan questioned whether her role in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale made her think about her involvement with the Church of Scientology, Moss defended her beliefs on Instagram, writing that the idea that Gilead in the series and Scientology "both believe that all outside sources are wrong or evil," as the fan describes, is "actually not true at all". She continued, "Religious freedom and tolerance and understanding the truth and equal rights for every race, religion and creed are extremely important to me."

Views

Moss considers herself a feminist.

Quotations: "I think my guideline has been to find things that inspire me. And as long as I stick to that, I don't think I'll have any problems crossing over to becoming an adult actress."

"It's a great dynamic. The dynamic between men and women in the workplace is really interesting."

"There's nothing like getting yourself into character and seeing a different person. It really wears on your vanity."

Personality

One of Elisabeth Moss' earliest high-profile roles was in the psychological drama movie Girl... Interrupted. As Wonderland Magazine notes, Moss was difficult to recognize in the movie due to her character's extensive scarring. Polly "Torch" Clark was a schizophrenic burn victim who befriended Winona Ryder's Susanna. The role of Polly was, alongside her stint in The West Wing, one of Moss' breakout roles that helped to redefine her as more than just a child actress.

Moss' performance in 'Girl, Interrupted' was apparently so convincing that one of her co-stars believed that she was a real-life burn victim.

In numerous interviews, Moss has made it clear that she's a pretty quiet and reserved person when the cameras stop rolling. In fact, Business Insider once described her as "a bit of a hermit".

In her interview with Vulture, Moss revealed that she's been accustomed to spending time by herself ever since she was a child, largely due to her exploits as a ballerina. She claims that she grew up in a kind of ballet-based bubble and that as a child performer, "you don't know a lot about normal everyday life... I feel like that carried on into my adult life."

Rather than getting out there and exploring "normal everyday life" a little bit more, Moss seems to have decided that being a bit of a loner is the better option for her.

She told Vulture that when she's not working, she relishes time by herself, and doesn't give herself much of an opportunity to meet new people. Moss ruled out "hiking", "classes", and "flea markets" as possible ways to get out there a bit more, and instead confessed that she loves to stay in and binge-watch TV shows like the rest of us. The actress admits that this approach to her social life has its flaws - she confessed to Female First that she's become "too good" at being alone, a habit she wants to break eventually so that she can fall in love and settle down. Moss is a hopeless romantic at heart.

Physical Characteristics: Elisabet Moss has a height of 5 ft 3 in or 160 cm, and a weight of 53 kg or 117 pounds. Her natural hair color is dark brown, but she prefers to dye it blonde. Moss has blue eyes. Elisabeth has always remained active in ballet which has helped her to stay fit in the long run.

Interests

• Writers

  J. D. Salinger

• Music & Bands

  Beyoncé, Bleachers

Connections

Elisabeth Moss got engaged to Fred Armisen in January 2009 and married him on 25 October 2009, in Long Island City, New York. The couple separated in June 2010 and the divorce was finalized on 13 May 2011.

Father:

Ron Moss

Mother:

Linda Moss

Ex-husband:

Fred Armisen

colleague:

Winona Ryder

colleague:

Olivia Wilde