Elisabeth Moss is coming to the defense of “misunderstood” Scientology.
A New Yorker profile detailed The Handmaid’s Tale actress’s long association with the controversial organization as a second-generation Scientologist. While she tried not to come off as “cagey” while answering questions about the group, she admitted she is for professional reasons because she doesn’t want the topic to “distract” from her work. But she did respond to several rumors, including whether she fled an awards show when Leah Remini’s anti-Scientology docuseries won, and whether her cursing in her 2017 Emmys acceptance speech was a Scientology thing.
“I don’t want to come off as being cagey,” Moss told the outlet. “If you and I met, just hanging out as friends, I’m, like, an open book about it.
“However, I don’t want people to be distracted by something when they’re watching me,” she said. “I want them to be seeing the character. I feel like, when actors reveal too much of their lives, I’m sometimes watching something and I’m going, Oh, I know that she just broke up with that person, or, I know that she loves to do hot yoga, or whatever it is.”
When told that people are already distracted, the Mad Men alum replied, “People can obviously hold in their mind whatever they want to, and I can’t control that. If it’s not that, it’s going to be something else.”
She said Scientology is “not really a closed-off religion. It’s a place that is very open to, like, welcoming in somebody who wants to learn more about it. I think that’s the thing that is probably the most misunderstood.”
Moss was asked about a report that she fled the room at the 2017 Television Critics Association Award when anti-Scientology activist Remini won for Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath.
“I went to the bathroom,” Moss replied. “I wish it was more exciting than that.”
Moss also responded to Remini’s claim she’s not allowed to talk to her for being a defector.
“I have never been approached by her,” Moss replied. “I have never received any request to talk to her. So there hasn’t been an opportunity for her to say that. I don’t know her that well, so it’s not like we were friends.”
Moss also addressed her infamous Emmys acceptance speech for Handmaid’s from that same year. In it, she dropped an F-bomb while thanking her musician mom, Linda, for teaching her to “be kind and a f****** badass. The Hollywood Reporter did a story at the time that Scientologists use profanity when addressing non-members to “down the tone scale” because if someone is “too ‘high-tone,’ non-members will not understand them.”
“That pissed me off,” Moss replied. “That was a really, really big moment for me, and it was a big moment for my mom and me. My mom, who has supported me through the years and been such an incredible mother to both me and my brother. And to tell a lie like that, about that — I didn’t deserve that, and it was wrong.”
Moss said Scientology has made her a skilled communicator, and encouraged people “to find out for themselves” about the group. “I’ve certainly been guilty of reading an article or watching something and taking that as gospel,” adding, “And obviously something like religious freedom and resistance against a theocracy is very important to me.”
The interview wasn’t all about the last “Purification Rundown,” a Scientology detox treatment she reportedly did in 2017 involving prolonged heat exposure and ingesting large quantities of niacin, she did. She also talked about being a “Moss Boss” on the set of The Handmaid’s Tale.
