Elisabeth Moss

 ( 1982 Births ) 

Beginning in 1999, Moss played the recurring role of Zoey Bartlet in the White House television drama The West Wing, playing the daughter of President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet (Stockard Channing); she portrayed the character until the series finale in 2006. Her character became integral to the fourth season of the show; in a retrospective on the series The Atlantic noted: "Aaron Sorkin made Moss the centerpiece of the explosive fourth-season finale where he basically engineered the most insane cliffhanger possible. It required Zoey to be a bit of a pain with her fancy French boyfriend, but Moss always made her relatable, even when the plot required otherwise."

In 2002, Moss appeared in a commercial for Excedrin in which she directly addressed the audience about the medication's benefits for people who suffer from . The spot proved enduringly popular and ran for several years, providing Moss with residual income as she struggled to make it as an actor. Moss appeared in Heart of America and three other films in 2004. That year, she made the film Virgin, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Moss also had a supporting part in Ron Howard's Western thriller The Missing (2003). Moss had a supporting role in the 2005–2006 Horror film series Invasion, and appeared in television again on a 2007 episode of Grey's Anatomy entitled "My Favorite Mistake".

While a series regular on Mad Men, Moss made her Broadway theatre debut in October 2008, playing the role of Karen in the 20th Anniversary revival of Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet. In his review Ben Brantley of The New York Times acknowledged her role in Mad Men but noted "She definitely doesn’t just repeat what she does on television." He added, "Ms. Moss proves the lie in that assessment, bringing a naked clarity to her unvarnished, tinny-voiced Karen that makes the play hang together in ways it didn’t before." She then briefly appeared in the romantic comedy film Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), playing Sarah Jessica Parker's assistant.Scheck, Frank. (TV channel)|y " Did You Hear About the Morgans? – Film Review", The Hollywood Reporter, December 15, 2009

In 2011, Moss made her West End debut as Martha Dobie in Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour, opposite Keira Knightley and Rebecca Hall. The play opened at The Comedy Theatre, London on January 22, 2011. Michael Billington of The Guardian described her performance as "Outstanding" noting, "Moss's achievement, in fact, is to combine the everyday busyness of a working teacher with subtle hints she has a suppressed longing that transcends mere friendship." In 2012, she was cast as Galatea Dunkel in the independent drama On the Road, based on Jack Kerouac's novel of the same name. Moss played detective Robin Griffin in the 2013 Sundance Channel miniseries Top of the Lake, a co-production by the Sundance Channel, the UK's BBC Two and Australia's UKTV, written and directed by Jane Campion.

In 2014, Moss starred in the independent film Listen Up Philip (2014), her first collaboration with writer-director Alex Ross Perry. She also starred in Charlie McDowell's The One I Love (2014) with Mark Duplass. Film critic Manhola Dargis of The New York Times wrote of her performance, "Ms. Moss, an amazing actress fast breaking free of the limits imposed on her by Mad Men...Here she creates a complex portrait of a woman tested by love whose smiles work like a barricade until fissures of feeling break down her last defenses. Ms. Moss lifts her and this movie with supple and steely grace." In September 2014, it was announced that Moss would star on Broadway as Heidi Holland in The Heidi Chronicles. The play opened on March 19, 2015, at The Music Box Theatre. Though the play received some positive reviews, it closed on May 3, 2015, due to low ticket sales. Charles Isherwood of The New York Times praised her writing "Ms. Moss, a superb actor who possesses an unusual ability to project innocence and smarts at the same time" adding, "Moss puts her own distinctive stamp on the part". For her performance she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

In 2017, she appeared in Mad to Be Normal, a biopic of the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, and co-starred in the film adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play The Seagull alongside Saoirse Ronan, Annette Bening, and Corey Stoll. The second season of Top of the Lake, consisting of six episodes, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2017 which is set in Sydney, Australia. That same year, Moss began playing June Osbourne / Offred in the Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale, for which she has received critical acclaim and a Primetime Emmy Award for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Liz Shannon Miller of IndieWire wrote, "The owes a tremendous amount to Moss as its star...as an actor, she has to communicate silently without revealing too much about what the character really thinks.". She added, "Moss fully commands each and every moment, every swallowed emotion and thought."

In 2018, Moss had a lead role in a short film for the song "On the Nature of Daylight", by British composer Max Richter, from his album The Blue Notebooks. Moss reunited with Alex Ross Perry for Her Smell (2018), 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 2019, Moss co-starred in Jordan Peele's psychological horror film Us alongside Lupita Nyong'o. Later that year, she starred in The Kitchen, alongside Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish, which follows three housewives who, after their mobster husbands are sent to prison, continue to operate their business.

In 2020, Moss starred in Shirley, opposite Michael Stuhlbarg and directed by Josephine Decker, portraying the role of author Shirley Jackson, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. She also had the starring role in the horror-thriller film The Invisible Man, alongside Oliver Jackson-Cohen and Storm Reid, which was released on February 28, 2020, to critical acclaim. In 2021, Moss appeared in The French Dispatch, directed by Wes Anderson. She appeared in Next Goal Wins, directed by Taika Waititi, in 2023. In 2020, Moss also launched a production company Love & Squalor Pictures. She was set to star in and produce Run Rabbit Run directed by Daina Reid.

In 2022 she starred as Kirby Mazrachi in the Apple TV+ thriller series Shining Girls based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Lauren Beukes. She also served as the executive producer and directed two episodes. Moss stated that the experience was "definitely one of the most complicated things I've ever done". In his review, Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter declared, "No single actor in the past 25 years has a more reliable television track record than Elisabeth Moss". In 2024 she starred in the FX on Hulu thriller limited series The Veil starring as Imogen Salter, a veteran MI6 agent. She also served as an executive producer. David Bianculli of NPR wrote, "By the end of the six episodes of The Veil, I was convinced that this is Moss' best role, and best performance, yet. She's amazing." Ben Travers of IndieWire wrote a mixed review praising Moss as an actress and comparing her to "Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Carrie Coon" but described the spy thriller series as "regressive to the genre itself".