Elisabeth Moss Says She 'Didn't Want to Pass the Torch' to “The Testaments” Cast: 'Light a New One'

The 'Handmaid's Tale' star shared why she knew it was "time do something a little new" in Gilead during a Tribeca Film Festival panel

NEED TO KNOW

• Elisabeth Moss joined The Testaments stars Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday at a Vulture Fest panel during the Tribeca Festival on Saturday, June 13
• Moss is an executive producer on Testaments — and made multiple appearances as June — and she shared her perspective on the idea of passing the torch onto the new cast of the show
• “I didn’t feel like I had to teach them anything,” Moss said

Elisabeth Moss wanted to be intentional about her presence on the set of The Testaments.

Moss was an executive producer on the Handmaid's Tale sequel series and made multiple appearances as June throughout season 1.

When she reunited with stars Chase Infiniti and Lucy Halliday at the Vulture Fest panel at the Tribeca Festival on Saturday, June 13, she revealed why she never felt like she "needed to tell [the cast] anything" that would inform their performances.

"It's a funny thing because there is a sort of sense of passing the torch [to] the next generation. I get asked, obviously, a fair amount, like, 'What have you taught these girls or what have you passed on?' And I always say, for me, I didn't want to pass the torch. I wanted them to light a new one. It was not about that at all."

Moss, 43, said that the cast — which also includes Mattea Conforti and Rowan Blanchard — were total "professionals" in their own right.

"They know what they're doing there. It wasn't any different than working with Ann Dowd," she said. "I didn't feel like I had to teach them anything."

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"And, in a way, you also don't want to mess with the freshness of it," she continued. "That's one of the things I think we were really excited about, was the idea that we do want something a little bit new. I mean, no offense to me, but we did watch [The Handmaid's Tale] for a while, and it was great, and it's time to maybe do something a little new."

Instead, Moss said, "We just had actor talk — deep actor talk."

The newness of The Testaments, which is an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's 2019 novel, was a key part of why Moss said she felt it was a story worth telling.

"We've sort of been beating it over the head from this one angle, and that has gone the way that it's gone, and it was great, and it was terrible, and there were things that we explored and then… How do you keep shaking the tree? How do you keep asking the question of — why are we doing this again? Why are we here? Why do we keep making the same mistakes?"

The teenage perspective that The Testaments offers is "hopefully more hopeful," Moss said, which "was also something we were craving and wanting" after a decade of The Handmaid's Tale.

During the panel, Moss also declared herself "the biggest fan of The Handmaid's Tale world."

"I am actually its biggest fan. I am. I will defend that," she said. "So for me, just the idea of getting to see any of these characters continue, getting to see anything more about anyone, getting to see this world continue in any way is so exciting."

"There's so much that is there to explore and, to me, it's all new territory. And there's still a million things that I feel like we haven't done that hopefully we'll get to do, and a million things that I haven't thought of that they'll think of," she added. "It feels like there's constantly so much to mine here."

Season 1 of The Testaments is now on Hulu.

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