Elisabeth Moss

Elisabeth Singleton Moss (born July 24, 1982 ) is a British-American actor and producer.

She is known for her work in several television dramas, garnering many accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, which led Vulture to name her the "Queen of Peak TV".

Moss began acting in the early 1990s and first gained recognition for playing the youngest daughter of President Josiah Bartlet, in the NBC political drama series The West Wing (1999–2006).

Moss's first screen role was in 1990, when she appeared in the NBC miniseries Lucky/Chances.

From 1992 until 1995, she appeared as Cynthia Parks in seven episodes of the TV series Picket Fences.

She provided the voice of Holly DeCarlo, a main character in the TV special Frosty Returns (1992) and of Michelle in the animated film Once Upon a Forest (1993).

She appeared in the television remake of the 1993 film Gypsy and played Harvey Keitel's younger daughter in the film Imaginary Crimes (1994).

The following year, she appeared in the remake of the Walt Disney Pictures film Escape to Witch Mountain (1995) and played a young Ashley Judd in the biopic Love Can Build a Bridge (1995).

She also had a supporting role in the drama Separate Lives (1995) opposite Jim Belushi and Linda Hamilton, and a minor part in the black comedy The Last Supper (1995).

She did more voice work, for the animated series Freakazoid! and the television film It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown! (1996).

Moss has also attracted acclaim for her film performances, notably supporting roles in Girl, Interrupted (1999), Get Him to the Greek (2010), and Us (2019), and starring roles in The One I Love (2014), The Square (2017), The Invisible Man (2020) and Shirley (2020).

To manage her education and career, she began homeschooling, and graduated in 1999.

Beginning in 1999, Moss played the recurring role of Zoey Bartlet in the White House television drama The West Wing, playing the daughter of President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and First Lady Abbey Bartlet (Stockard Channing); she portrayed the character until the series finale in 2006.

Her character became integral to the fourth season of the show; in a retrospective on the series The Atlantic noted: "Aaron Sorkin made [Moss] the centerpiece of the explosive fourth-season finale where he basically engineered the most insane cliffhanger possible. It required Zoey to be a bit of a pain with her fancy French boyfriend, but Moss always made her relatable, even when the plot required otherwise."

In 1999, she had a supporting role as a patient in a mental institution in James Mangold's Girl, Interrupted, opposite Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, and a minor part in the drama Anywhere but Here.

The same year, she had a small role in the film Mumford (1999), playing the daughter of a woman with a shopping addiction.

In 2002, Moss appeared in a commercial for Excedrin in which she directly addressed the audience about the medication's benefits for people who suffer from migraines.

The spot proved enduringly popular and ran for several years, providing Moss with residual income as she struggled to make it as an actor.

Moss also had a supporting part in Ron Howard's Western thriller The Missing (2003).

Moss appeared in Heart of America and three other films in 2004.

That year, she made the film Virgin, for which she was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

Moss had a supporting role in the 2005–2006 horror series Invasion, and appeared in television again on a 2007 episode of Grey's Anatomy entitled "My Favorite Mistake", and on the series Medium opposite Patricia Arquette.

In 2006, she was cast as Peggy Olson, secretary-turned-copywriter in the AMC dramatic series Mad Men.

She earned wider recognition for playing Peggy Olson, a secretary-turned-copywriter, in the AMC period drama series Mad Men (2007–2015), and subsequently won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film for portraying Detective Robin Griffin in the BBC miniseries Top of the Lake (2013).

She also appeared in Mary Lambert's 2007 horror film The Attic, the independent drama Day Zero (2007), and the 2008 drama El camino.

While a series regular on Mad Men, Moss made her Broadway debut in October 2008, playing the role of Karen in the 20th Anniversary revival of Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet.

Between 2009 and the series' final season in 2015, Moss was nominated for five Emmy awards for the role for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

In 2010, she was nominated for the Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy.

Reflecting on her casting in the series, Moss recalled: "I auditioned [for the role]. There were scripts for two pilots that everyone was talking about at the time that were really good, and Mad Men was one of them."

For producing and starring as June Osborne in the Hulu dystopian drama series The Handmaid's Tale (2017–present), Moss won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and Outstanding Drama Series, among other accolades.

She has also starred in three films by Alex Ross Perry, including Her Smell (2018).

On stage, she has performed in the Broadway productions of David Mamet's Speed the Plow and Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles.

For the latter, she received a nomination for the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

She also appeared in the West End production of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour.

Moss was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Ronald Charles Moss, who was British and originally from Birmingham, England, and Linda Moss (née Ekstrom), an American of part-Swedish descent.

Both of Moss's parents were musicians; her mother plays jazz and blues harmonica professionally.

Moss has one younger brother.

She was raised a Scientologist.

Initially, Moss aspired to be a professional dancer.

In her adolescence, she traveled to New York City to study ballet at the School of American Ballet, after which she studied with Suzanne Farrell at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. She continued to study dance through her teenage years, but started getting acting roles as well.