Elisabeth Moss Says ‘Constantly Chasing Youth’ Is Not a New Concept (Exclusive)

Actresses facing discrimination in Hollywood for daring to age? Women paying through the nose for (sometimes questionable) treatments and surgeries and lotions and potions to look younger? It’s all old hat, says Elisabeth Moss, who stars in the new dark comedy Shell all about the topic.

In the film, Moss plays an actress in her 40s whose management team suggests she get a little work done in order to get more roles.

She decides to try a new procedure created by Zoe Shannon (Kate Hudson), not knowing there are deadly side effects. The end result is campy-horror fun, which is what Moss, 43, says she and director Max Minghella were going for.

“That’s what we really wanted,” she says of the thriller. “We wanted it to be this entertaining, fun, campy, wild ride of a film without there being some super-serious statement about beauty and aging.”

Moss adds, “We’ve lived with this idea globally for thousands of years — it’s not a new concept that people are constantly chasing youth and beauty. But it was fun to kind of explore seeing how far some people would go for it — especially with Kate’s character, how much she risks and how far she takes it.”

Mingehlla and Moss, who worked together on The Handmaid’s Tale series, were reunited for the movie (Moss is a producer), and she says it was so easy to work with him because they have similar sensibilities when it comes to work.

“We are very similar kinds of people. We like a lot of the same things in film and television, and we really get along really well on set,” she says. “There’s not a lot of ego. There’s no bulls—. We both think like directors and producers, and so we want to get what we need to get. And neither of us take acting particularly seriously.”

That statement might surprise fans who know Moss in serious roles like Peggy Olsen in Mad Men or June Osborne in The Handmaid’s Tale. Moss admits that in real life she’s far goofier and more light-hearted than the characters she plays.

“The number one thing that I feel like I hear from people after they meet me, especially if they’ve only seen my work, is they’re always like, ‘Okay, I was expecting you to be super, super serious!’ And then, obviously, I’m not,” she says with a laugh.

Which means she is down to star in a rom-com or straight comedy in the future to highlight that side.

“I obviously gravitate towards more dramatic material because I love doing that. I love dramatic acting, and I don’t consider it hard — it’s fun for me, is the best way of putting it,” she explains.

“But we had the most amazing scripts back then,” she says of the rom-com golden age of the ’80s, ’90s, and early aughts. “My producing partner and I call them ‘Capital M’ movies, just old-fashioned movies with a great script that are fun to watch. So yeah, I’d love to be a part of something like that.”

Shell is in select theaters and on digital Oct. 3.