The Handmaid’s Tale star Elisabeth Moss is staying with Hulu for her next project. The former Mad Men star will lead The Veil, a new FX on Hulu limited series. The project was created by Steven Knight, who also worked with FX on Taboo and is best known for creating Peaky Blinders.
The Veil is about two women who find themselves in a surprising and fraught relationship. They play a deadly game of truth and lies across Europe. One woman has a secret and the other wants to spill the beans to save thousands of people. Knight wrote the series and will executive produce with PatMa Productions’ Denise De Novi and Nina Tassler. Moss is also an executive producer with Lindsey McManus for Love & Squalor Pictures. FX Productions is the studio.
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“We’re excited to continue our partnership with Steven Knight on The Veil and thrilled to have Elisabeth Moss sign on for the lead role,” FX Original Programming President Nick Grad said in a statement to Deadline. “Steven’s scripts are riveting and no doubt will showcase Elisabeth’s exceptional talent.”
“I’m absolutely thrilled to be telling this story, which is truly international and very contemporary,” Knight added. “We have gathered together some of the most talented people in the business. Working with Denise Di Novi is always a pleasure and I’ve wanted to work with Elisabeth Moss for a long time. Of course, FX and I are old friends. I think this will be a landmark television event.”
Moss scored her breakout role as Peggy Olson on AMC’s Mad Men in 2006, earning five Emmy nominations for her performance. She played June Osborne on Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, based on the Margaret Atwood novel. Moss won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series at the 2017 Emmys for the show. The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5 will debut on Hulu on Sept. 14.
Hulu hasn’t said if Season 5 will be The Handmaid’s Tale‘s last. It is by far Hulu’s most successful original series and became the first-ever streaming series to win the Outstanding Drama Series Emmy in 2017. In August 2021, Jordan Helman, head of Hulu Originals scripted content, told Variety that if the writers thought Season 5 was its last, it could very well be. Hulu is already developing a series based on Atwood’s follow-up novel, The Testaments.
“If they came to us with the belief that this was the last season, I’m sure that would happen sooner rather than later,” Helman told Variety. “But again, there are a lot of conversations surrounding Handmaids, especially in regards to how do we onramp The Testaments into the larger world of Gilead. And again, it’s front of mind for all of us at Hulu and certainly for the producers.”
Showrunner Bruce Miller also told The Hollywood Reporter last year he didn’t want to “stretch” the show out, but he wasn’t looking forward to ending it. “I’m in no rush to end it. I love making it,” Miller said in June 2021. “The chance that you get to make exactly the TV you want at this level is incredibly uncommon. And I am absolutely gifted with the people I get to work with. The writers, entire cast, and most of the crew has been there since the beginning. Maybe it’s the pandemic talking, but I’m not eager to run away from any of those people or that kind of storytelling.”
