The Invisible Man is the latest dark role for Elisabeth Moss to tackle, and it turns out she has a surprising reason for doing them.
Talking to Digital Spy, Moss revealed that she has no trouble leaving behind dark roles and "moving right along" and, for her, roles like The Invisible Man and The Handmaid's Tale are "way more fun".
"I wish the narrative was that I was some dark, serious person. I wish I was more like Joaquin Phoenix or something, but I just find them really fun," she said.
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"I find them really enjoyable and challenging and to me, it's more fun to run around and do crazy shit than to be happy on screen."
Leigh Whannell's take on The Invisible Man brings the classic monster into the modern era and explores abusive relationships and gaslighting.
For Moss, that timeliness of the approach was what appealed to her.
"I think the thing that makes it the most scary is that it's so grounded in reality. There's a real man, a real villain who has no superpowers, there's nothing magical that makes him scary," she explained.
"And she's a real woman and they had a real relationship and I think that's what freaks people out the most."
Given that Cecilia is being stalked by something nobody can see, The Invisible Man features extended sequences of her walking around with nothing for Moss to act against.
And that's just how Moss liked it as she called the moments a "dream come true" as she was "enacting all of my horror film fantasies".
"My favourite scene that we did was one that was really simple. Just one shot on Steadicam going through a hallway, and I'm just turning on lights and revealing that nothing's there and then that door opens behind me," she recalled.
"It was heaven. I was like, 'I am that girl in those movies that I love!'. It was really truly a moment when we said cut I was like, 'Leigh, that was like classic horror movie scene'."
We don't see too much of Cecilia's relationship with Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) during the movie, but Moss worked with her co-star to flesh out their relationship.
"[We] sadly worked out what exactly was the abuse, what exactly happened in that relationship and created something for ourselves so that when Cecilia was thinking about something, she had something to think about," she noted.
Jackson-Cohen added: "You don't see Adrian a lot, but when you do see him, we need to be very, very specific about what it was and why we were seeing that. So we needed to flesh out this relationship.
"We could talk for hours about their relationship and what they did. We felt it important because it bleeds into the movie and I think that, ultimately, it helps with the movie and helps with the terror of the movie."
The Invisible Man is released on February 28.
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Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
