Elisabeth Moss Suffered Serious Injury While Filming New TV Show 'The Veil'

Elisabeth Moss was left with a 'broken back' after being injured filming an action sequence.

By Stephen Andrew

Elisabeth Moss really laid it all out on the line while filming her new FX on Hulu show, The Veil. The actress recently revealed to Variety that, during the filming of one action sequence, she suffered a serious injury to her back, fracturing a vertebrae in her back, and winding up lying on her back for two hours on a roof in Istanbul.

In the show — which debuted April 30 — Moss plays Imogen, an undercover MI6 agent who is trying to stop a planned ISIS terrorist attack from being carried out in the United States. In Episode 2, Imogen has to fend off an attack from an assailant on a rooftop above the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. This is the scene in which Moss got seriously hurt. "The [scene] you see in the show is actually the second time we shot it, about six weeks later," the Emmy-winner told Variety. "The first time we shot it I hit a wall the wrong way, let's just say, and ended up lying on the roof for a couple hours."

Moss' producing partner Denise Di Novi says she "felt so bad for her," and stayed at the actress' side as she lay on the roof. While she had "fractured a vertebra really badly" and was left with limited mobility at the time, Moss was determined to continue filming and showed up for a scene the following day. "She is underselling how hard a lot of the stunt was that she did," Di Novi said.

"We actually shot the next day at the airport, those are the Paris airport scenes you see [in the episode], and I actually have, like, a broken back," Moss then clarified. "I tried to get them to put a green blanket over me, and just VFX me out. I was like, 'Look, just put the green blanket over me and you can scrub me out in post.'"

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Moss also confessed that she was preoccupied with the injury for other reasons as well, worrying that they might not be able to finish filming the scene due to her accident. "Well, I didn't know if we were going to be able to come back and shoot on this rooftop in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul," she said. "It's not like that is an easy thing to accomplish. But luckily, we, as a production, and then FX, thank God, let us go back and shoot it again. Which was incredible, an incredible opportunity."

Di Novi then went on to commend Moss for her dedication to performing many of her own stunts for The Veil. "I think the discipline and coordination of being a dancer made a huge difference for her," Di Novi says. "I think it was great for the show that Lizzie was able to stay in character and retained the character in the action scenes. She just did so much work and preparation and rehearsal."

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