She might not be Peggy Olson this time, but Elisabeth Moss is gearing up to play the underdog female once more.
The Mad Men alumna has been cast in The Handmaid’s Tale, a drama ordered straight to series at Hulu.
Based on Margaret Atwood’s best-selling novel of the same name, the project stars Moss as Offred, a handmaid trying to survive in the male-dominated regime of Gilead. Here’s the official logline:
The Handmaid’s Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted religious fundamentalism that treats women as property of the state. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred is a handmaid in the Commander’s household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow handmaids — where anyone could be a spy for Gilead — all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.
The series hails from Bruce Miller (The 100), who will also write and exec-produce alongside Fran Sears, Warren Littlefield and Daniel Wilson (the latter of whom worked on the 1990 film version of The Handmaid’s Tale). Production begins on the drama later this year for a 2017 premiere.
Since ending her seven-season run as secretary Peggy on Mad Men, Moss has appeared in the Sundance miniseries Top of the Lake, which earned her a Golden Globe in 2014.
