The reviews are in, and they’re spectacular. Elisabeth Moss just shut it down as Offred, the reproductive sexual slave in Hulu’s fiercely grueling yet darkly funny adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. In the dystopian novel, first published in 1985, Offred lives in Gilead, what was once the United States, and serves only one purpose: to make good use of her ovaries and produce a child for the totalitarian state.
Glam isn’t part of the equation, which was “a huge plus. Huge plus,” Moss tells Yahoo Style. “Anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like getting up in the morning. I will push as late as possible to be on set. The fact that my makeup and hair took 30 to 45 minutes at the most was amazing.”
Her Offred is clad in scarlet frocks and cloaks and wears little to no makeup. She’s stressed, miserable, and haunted by memories of the daughter who was taken away from her by the government, to be raised as a child of Gilead. And that served her well.
“If you’re not sleeping a lot because you’re working your [butt] off and you get dark circles and bags under your eyes — the more you have, the better. You’re supposed to look stressed. In fact, one night I got sleep. I came in and my makeup artist was like, ‘Oh dear,’ and was disappointed that I didn’t have the dark circles under my eyes that we needed,” she says.
On those few days, she had to spend a few extra minutes in hair and makeup, to have her undereye bags cosmetically applied.
What a job.
