Actress Elisabeth Moss is earning raves for her performance in The Invisible Man, but that's far from her first foray into the horror genre. While she didn't gain widespread fame until adulthood, Moss has actually been acting regularly in Hollywood since she was in single digits. Her career trajectory is proof that even those sometimes seen as overnight success stories usually had to put in lots of time and energy toiling in the low budget trenches before landing their breakthrough role.
For Moss, that role came in the form of Peggy Olson on the critically acclaimed, Emmy-magnet AMC drama Mad Men, widely regarded as one of the best shows in TV history. While Moss never won an Emmy for Mad Men, she was nominated a whopping six times for her work as Peggy. Moss' star has only shone brighter since Mad Men ended, thanks to her leading role in Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale, for which she's received two Emmy nominations so far, winning once.
While Moss' TV dominance continues, she now looks poised to become an A-lister on the big screen, thanks to the smash success of Blumhouse's recent horror reboot The Invisible Man. Moss' lead performance as Cecilia, a woman menaced by an invisible foe, has earned raves, and the sky looks to be the limit for her. For now though, it's time to look back at the times Moss ventured over to horror before she was such a big name.
Elisabeth Moss' Horror Movie & TV Roles
At the tender age of 10, Moss appeared in the made for TV horror movie Midnight's Child as Christina, a girl whose busy parents hire a nanny to look after her that ends up being into Satanism. In 1995, at the age of 13, Moss played the daughter of Jim Belushi's detective character in the movie Separate Lives, which sees Belushi investigate multiple personality murders committed by Linda Hamilton's psychology professor. In 2001's Spirit, Moss appeared as Kelly, a teenager convinced that her family's new home is haunted.
In the mid-2000s, Moss recurred as another character named Christina on the short-lived alien invasion series Invasion, one of the people changed as a result of their arrival on Earth. Moss also guest starred on spooky procedural Medium, and sappy paranormal drama Ghost Whisperer around that time. Moss tangled with an evil doppelganger in 2007 movie The Attic, and also played the leading role in the Fear Itself episode "Eater," a rookie cop stuck guarding a hulking cannibal serial killer. That episode was directed by the late Stuart Gordon.
More recently, Moss appeared in the apocalyptic 2019 movie Light of My Life, about a father and daughter surviving a decade after a pandemic wiped out humanity. That same year, Moss played boozing wife Kitty in Us, as well as her scissor-carrying doppelganger. In 2020, Moss of course played Cecilia in The Invisible Man, but also starred as a fictionalized version of The Haunting of Hill House author Shirley Jackson in the movie Shirley. Hopefully Elisabeth Moss won't be a stranger to horror going forward.