Cream cheese, jelly, and babies do not go together, according to Elisabeth Moss.
The Handmaid’s Tale actress was a guest on Monday’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, where the host asked her to describe the worst scene she’s had to film so far on the show.
“Probably the birth scene in season 2, where I had to give birth by myself, naked,” the actress said. On the show, her character is captured by a ruthless couple (played by Joseph Fiennes, Yvonne Strahovski) and goes into labor under extremely difficult conditions.
“Yeah, we had a couple [babies],” Moss continued. “There was one baby that, in order to get that post-birth look — the guck that comes on a baby — they put cream cheese and jelly on the baby.”
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Although the Kimmel audience responded to the behind-the-scenes info with awws and oohs, Moss said the baby wasn’t too pleased.
“That baby was not ‘aw,'” she said. “That baby was not having it. Not having it. First of all, it smelled, which is weird. The cream cheese and jelly was odd. And it hated it, so it was screaming so loud. So I was doing this really emotional scene; I’m like naming the baby after my mother. It was all very emotional and this baby’s just screaming at the bottom of its lungs in my ear.”
“Because you made it into an English muffin,” Kimmel joked.
Although that scene was particularly hard to shoot, Moss said, in general, it’s not uncomfortable to film for The Handmaid’s Tale, despite its heavy subject matter. On the show, which has been renewed for a fourth season, women have few rights under an oppressive regime and are only valued for their reproductive abilities.
“As crazy as it is, we honestly enjoy doing the show so much,” Moss told Kimmel. “It’s important to us. We love it, it’s an incredible opportunity. And I think that for us, it’s a great challenge but very, very fulfilling.”
Moss appeared on Kimmel to promote her upcoming crime comedy film The Kitchen, which also stars Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish. The trio play women who take matters into their own hands when their mobster husbands are sent to prison. The film debuts this Friday.
