Elisabeth Moss has no trouble squaring her role as a rebellious woman under an oppressive religious order in The Handmaid’s Tale with her own belief in Scientology. While the real-world religion has decidedly retrograde views on the LGBTQ community, and those same people are treated with disdain by the fictional government she fights as Offred, Moss’ interpretation of her church’s teachings allows her to jibe both her character and her faith.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Moss said it comes down to filtering Scientology through her own beliefs and experiences.
“Listen, it’s a complicated thing because the things that I believe in, I can only speak to my personal experience and my personal beliefs. One of the things I believe in is freedom of speech. I believe we as humans should be able to critique things,” she said. “I don’t ever want to take that away from anybody, because that actually is very important to me. At the same time, I should hope that people educate themselves for themselves and form their own opinion.”
Moss also noted that her religious beliefs and her career have put her in a position that most people don’t have to deal with, in terms of being asked about subjects that are considered off-limits in polite conversation.
“It’s funny, there’s two things you’re never supposed to talk about at a dinner—politics or religion—and of course I’m doing The Handmaid’s Tale, which is politics and religion, so it’s a strange situation where you’re going to be asked about these topics,” she said. "I choose to express myself in my work and my art. I don’t choose to express myself about it in interviews.”
Moss went on to say that her personal beliefs are not something that easily breaks down into a paragraph in a Q&A, so she tries to avoid talking about the subject with interviewers.
“It’s so hard to unpack in a sound bite or an interview, but I will say that the things that I truly believe in are the things that I’ve mentioned, and I think that they’re very important,” she said, seemingly closing that portion of the discussion before it could go any further.
