While we wait with '50s cocktails and bated breath for the last season of Mad Men, Elisabeth Moss shot Jane Campion's new Sundance Channel miniseries Top Of the Lake, in which she played a hard-boiled female detective and "damaged fortysomething women sleep in shipping crates." Sounds like my mom's house.
Moss played coy about where Peggy will end up in the new season: "The only thing I can even say is that she's trying on new things. She's trying to figure out who she is, still, and she hasn't quite found it yet. But I think her journey in trying to figure out who she is … she's getting closer. She's getting closer.")
She also spoke about how Campion used her "wonderful female energy" to coax Moss into her first-time onscreen nudity:
Yeah, that was an interesting part of it, because I knew there was going to be some nudity, and I didn't want to do it at first. I sort of balked at it and scrutinized it and went over it, but in my initial conversations with Jane, I'd get off the phone with her and be like, "You know, I just feel safe. I have a feeling that this is going to be fine." And it wasn't just that she told me it was gonna be fine and she told me it was gonna be safe.
But Jane Campion is going to be the last… she's the most feminist woman in the world. You know, she's going to be the last person to take advantage of you. Most importantly, too, she was like, "You're gonna look great." [Laughs.] And as a female, an actress, that's important. And you don't want to be put in any position - pun intended - that's not good. And she just made me feel safe. I was able to look at playback on set and make sure that things were going in the right direction.
'Elisabeth Moss on Top of the Lake, Working With Jane Campion, and Getting Naked' [Vulture]