This put up accommodates spoilers for The Handmaid’s Story‘s Season 5 finale.
Bear in mind Fred’s grandiose Gilead funeral in Episode 2 of The Handmaid’s Story‘s just-wrapped season? With the marchers and the coffin and the procession that crammed a number of streets, that hour was the biggest manufacturing the present had ever pulled off… till this week’s season finale. Collection star/government producer Elisabeth Moss directed each.
Naturally, TVLine couldn’t wait to speak to Moss about her newest flip behind the digital camera, which included executing an agonizingly emotional — and pivotal — scene for her character, June Osborne, smack in the course of an overcrowded prepare station. (Learn a full recap of the finale right here.)
Learn on as Moss breaks down her expertise helming the episode — together with why “Kokomo” was the one approach to go for that different main scene.
TVLINE | Let’s begin within the prepare station. Give me the whole lot. How many individuals have been you shifting round whilst you have been directing that?
There have been over 500 background actors.
TVLINE | That’s rather a lot.
Yeah, it’s a hell of rather a lot, particularly when all of these individuals should be examined for COVID, protocols should be adopted. They should be fed. They should be housed. They should be saved someplace. You realize, it’s an enormous, big operation. It’s not simply these individuals — there’s a number of different people who should be introduced in to assist handle all these individuals. It was probably the most quantity of extras we’ve ever had on the present. And one of many causes that that occurred is as a result of I didn’t wish to do any VFX individuals.
There’s a really minimal quantity [of computer-generated effects] sooner or later, however not contained in the prepare station. As a result of I needed to ensure that we may truly movie their faces, that we may truly really feel their emotion, that we may truly see them drained, that we may truly see actual youngsters. I needed to ensure that we may really feel that they have been actual individuals, and that we may transfer them round like actual individuals, and so we needed to have actual individuals. We couldn’t depend on crowd alternative, which is the way it grew to become probably the most quantity of individuals.
TVLINE | I’m not conversant in Toronto — have been you on the essential prepare station in Toronto?
No, the primary prepare station in Toronto is sort of large and fairly arduous to movie in, as a result of they, for some cause, insist on working trains out and in there and retaining the inhabitants shifting! [Laughs] We filmed at, truly, a subway station that was at York College.
TVLINE | How lengthy did it take to get the whole lot you wanted to movie?
OK, so that is loopy. Principally we couldn’t get into the prepare station till midnight. It was a Saturday night time. We may solely shoot there on Saturday night time… and we needed to be out the door, all gear out the door, not a soul, not a light-weight, nothing inside, not a field at 8 am, so we had eight hours. It was eight hours, which meant that we may solely shoot for seven hours, as a result of they wanted an hour to load out.
TVLINE | Wow.
We did probably the most quantity of digital camera setup that we’ve ever performed, in that period of time, within the historical past of the present. We had three cameras. We clearly storyboarded the entire thing, and it was only a super quantity of stress. There have been over 500 individuals and we simply needed to go, so we simply saved going. We simply saved getting a shot, getting a shot, getting a shot, getting a shot till we bought it, and we bought the whole lot we wanted. And it was my fortieth birthday.
TVLINE | I think about somebody wheeling out a cake to sing to you, and also you saying, “We don’t have the time!”
[Laughs] Effectively, I imagine they wheeled it out earlier than midnight.
TVLINE | These train-station scenes are inherently chaotic, however we additionally get this very intimate second between June and Luke. Speak to me about balancing that as a director — it looks as if it might be straightforward for one thing like that to get swallowed up by the grandeur of the environment.
I like that you just’re asking me, like, inside baseball questions. I like these sorts of questions, you understand what I imply? I like the questions that aren’t identical to, “What do you assume your character is feeling?”
TVLINE | Effectively, I’ve undoubtedly requested you a bunch of these, too, over time.
[Laughs] So, for that scene, for the phone-call scene, one other fascinating story. The entire prepare station sequence took 4 days. So, there was the night time that we did at York College, which was the 550 individuals on my birthday, after which there was the platform, which took two nights. After which there was contained in the prepare, which was a construct. We constructed three vehicles of the prepare inside a studio [for Serena and June’s scene]. I imply, you’ve by no means seen something prefer it. It was extraordinary. The costliest factor we’ve ever performed on the present, that’s the finale.
… The cellphone name was on the platform, and we shot it over two nights. I shot O-T [Fagbenle]’s facet first. And we cleared out many of the background, so I believe on a number of the photographs, within the wider photographs, there have been individuals passing. However after we did his close-up, there actually wasn’t anybody there — for apparent causes: sound, and likewise simply intimacy. I needed him to go first, as a result of he and I had spoken rather a lot in regards to the scene, what we needed it to be. We went off the script fairly a bit. We’d form of improvise after which come again to the script, improvise and are available again to the script. What you see is a mix of what’s within the script and improvisation. And I’ve by no means performed something like this. I used to be on the monitor watching him, his close-up. I had one headphone in, in order that I may hear him. I used to be watching and I had the cellphone to my ear. So, I used to be doing the scene with him whereas watching him on the monitor.
So typically I’m saying the strains, and typically I’m giving him path on the opposite facet of the cellphone… I like working with O-T, as a result of he’s very fluid like that. Like, he loves to return and say the road once more, he needs to return to the start of the scene and do the entire thing once more. Like, he’s very, very fluid and really instinctive and you bought to simply give him that runway. You’ve bought to simply let him go.
Anyway, I mainly had him do his facet first, as a result of he’s very a lot driving that cellphone name. What he says and the way he convinces June to get on the prepare simply impacts what June says and the way she reacts. He was so phenomenal and simply so stunning, and simply broke my coronary heart. Oh my god, he simply actually introduced it to life. Then the following night time, I did my facet and the identical factor; he was on the opposite finish of the cellphone. He was standing throughout from me, not on the monitor, in order that he may take a look at me and I may take a look at him. However we cleared just about all people out of the station so it was simply me and him. It felt very intimate. It felt prefer it was simply him and I.
TVLINE | Simply so I’m clear: You shot that on the platform on the York College subway station, as effectively?
No. We shot that about two hours exterior of Toronto at one other location that was a prepare station platform.
TVLINE | Obtained it. There’s a visible we’ve seen all through the sequence: the window photographs that harken again to June sitting in her room within the Waterfords’ home. We noticed it with Serena just a few episodes again, and we see it close to the beginning of the finale, when June’s attempting on the bulletproof vest. Are you able to discuss that picture and why you needed it on this episode?
We name it “the long-lasting shot,” and it, you understand, was performed within the first episode. The primary time you see June as a handmaid, she’s sitting in that window. And so, I like to make use of it as a callback to simply at all times remind individuals whose story that is, that that is The Handmaid’s Story, and that Gilead is at all times current. It’s a reminder not solely of June and Offred, however it’s a reminder of Gilead, that Gilead is together with her. Gilead is at all times current in her world. It’s a approach of bringing Gilead into Toronto, you understand? I did it in Season 4, however it didn’t make it into the lower. We ended up not utilizing it. So this 12 months, I used to be very very like, “Oh, I actually wish to make sure that we do it this 12 months. We want it.”
TVLINE | Whose name was it to make use of “Kokomo” for the scene the place June will get run down by the truck?
It was my selection. [Laughs]
TVLINE | It’s so terrifying in that scene!
Thanks! OK, so there was one other selection that I can not say, that we didn’t get permission from the artist to make use of — for apparent causes, as a result of it’s not a really nice scene, and it might indicate that the individual within the truck is listening to that music, proper? So this artist didn’t need us to make use of that track. And I used to be like, I completely get it, I’m completely with you on that one. We have been despatched some choices by our music supervisor, and “Kokomo” was one among them and it simply match. I needed one thing that had a humorousness to it. I needed one thing that had a wink.
As loopy as it could sound, I don’t know if individuals essentially take a look at this or not, however there are moments within the finale which have an actual, like, wink to them, which can be very tongue-in-cheek. And the usage of “Kokomo” is among the largest ones of these. It’s imagined to be absurd. It’s imagined to make you chuckle on the absurdity of this example. And I needed one thing that was simply form of vacation-y, that was form of beachy, that had like this nice, sunny angle to it.
TVLINE | The final season is developing. Are you planning on directing any episodes?
Yeah, I believe I will probably be directing. I’m undecided which of them but. We’re nonetheless figuring out all of the scheduling and timing of the whole lot and who can do what. We wish to get our greatest staff of administrators collectively, if attainable.
