1 of 5 | Elisabeth Moss produces, directs and stars in "Shining Girls." File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI |
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LOS ANGELES, April 29 (UPI) -- Elisabeth Moss said her new show Shining Girls, premiering Friday on Apple TV+, is an analogy for trauma.
Moss executive produces, directs and stars as Kirby Mazrachi, a woman who survives an attack that causes her reality to shift constantly.
"An incident like that, Kirby will never be able to move on from, which is the analogy of the show," Moss said during a recent Television Critics Association Zoom panel. "We didn't wrap everything up in a tiny little bow."
In showrunner Silka Luisa's adaptation of Lauren Beukes' novel, Kirby works in the archives of the Chicago Sun Times newsroom in 1992. Her assault occurred six years prior and the assailant was never caught.
Moss said that knowing her attacker is still out there is traumatic enough. Unfortunately, Kirby has even more with which to cope.
"Pile on top of that this ever-changing reality," Moss said. "Pile on top of that, that this world that completely shifts all the time around you and you don't know why that's happening.
As a director, Moss said she collaborated with Luisa to portray reality shifting in a way that felt palpable to the audience. In one scene, a female medical examiner suddenly appears as a male examiner while Kirby is on their table.
Later, Kirby returns to the apartment she shares with her mother (Amy Brenneman), only to find a stranger living there. Kirby's driver's license shows a new address when she checks.
"We wanted things to be from Kirby's point of view," Moss said. "We wanted to feel like it would feel as if it was happening to you."
Sun Times reporter Dan Velazquez (Wagner Moura) is following the story of a murder victim (Phillipa Soo, seen in flashbacks) whose injuries were the same as Kirby's. When Kirby shares her story, Dan becomes invested in finding Kirby's attacker.
"He's the first person that's as interested in this as she is," Moss said. "He's the first person that doesn't think that she's crazy. He's not quite so sure what exactly is going on yet, but he is listening to her."
Dan has no answers for Kirby when they begin investigating together. However, Moss said simply having an ally is invaluable to Kirby.
"As a victim of trauma, to be listened to is so important," Moss said. "So that is what Dan brings into Kirby's world."
No stranger to traumatized characters, Moss played Peggy Olson in Mad Men and Offred/June in The Handmaid's Tale. Her movie roles include a woman pursued by The Invisible Man, addicted author Shirley Jackson in Shirley and a volatile rock star in Her Smell.
Moss said she draws upon her own life for all of her roles. She was neither a secretary in the '60s, an oppressed woman in the future, nor a woman helpless to shifting realities like Kirby, but Moss said she is able to find a personal connection nevertheless.
"I can understand the feeling that she might be getting from that experience," Moss said. "Or, I can understand that particular relationship with that person or with her mother."
With a wealth of experience portraying such characters, Moss said she is equally adept at decompressing from intense roles.
"I'm fully aware I'm pretending," Moss said. "I'm fully aware that it's not real. I just don't have any trouble getting out of it."
New episodes of Shining Girls premiere Fridays on Apple TV+.