After ‘The Kitchen,’ Can Elisabeth Moss Please Do a Big, Fun Comedy Next?

Elisabeth Moss knows a thing or two about playing pain. Over the past two decades of prestige TV drama, she’s been a constant presence. She’s been the terrified kidnapped president’s daughter on The West Wing, she’s been the long-suffering doormat-turned-bad-ass on Mad Men, and of course, she’s currently the rebellious but worn-out survivor on The Handmaid’s Tale, where she’s been tortured beyond belief.

On the film side, she recently underwent a complete emotional and physical breakdown in Alex Ross Perry’s indie, Her Smell, in which Moss starred as a ’90s grunge rock star and riot grrrl. Now she’s set to headline her first major studio feature, The Kitchen, where she’ll play a struggling mobster’s wife who gets lured into a life of violence. Despite a comedic cast that includes Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish, the film, written and directed by Andrea Berloff, is a drama of the R-rated violent variety, so no doubt Moss will feel right out home. But after The Kitchen, I would love to Moss try out a big, silly comedy role, because, obviously, I’m the person in charge of deciding that sort of thing.

Moss has proven herself to be a hilarious comedic actor time and time again, but her uber-serious, often tortured and violent roles rarely give her the opportunity to be truly funny for a sustained period of time. In Jordan Peele’s 2019 horror film Us, she had my theater in stitches with her portrayal of a clueless, self-absorbed wine mom. It was a brief supporting role that ultimately ended in violence—much like her other roles—but those few comedic scenes drew me to her as a performer far more than any of Offred’s pained grimaces on The Handmaid’s Tale. She had the thankless role of “timid girlfriend” in 2010’s Get Him to the Greek—a comedy from producer Judd Apatow that was mostly a showcase for Russell Brand’s wild child comedy schtick—but she made every line count.

In The One I Love, a peculiar half-comedy, half-thriller starring Moss and Mark Duplass as a husband and wife who embark on an odd retreat, she had some moments. But, ultimately most of the funny lines that made up the comedy part of the film went to Duplass’s character, as these things tend to go with on-screen Hollywood married couples. (Side note to Hollywood: I know this is a wild concept, but sometimes women are the funny ones in the relationship!)

There’s some evidence to suggest that, despite the comedic background of her costars, Moss might be the comic relief of The Kitchen. That’s a big might—I haven’t yet seen the film, which premieres on Friday, and am basing this solely off of the fact that her character gets the obligatory last-beat-of-any-action-film-trailer joke in The Kitchen trailer: “What do you wear to something like that,” she asks. “Do you get dressed up?” I don’t know what the that is, but based on McCarthy and Haddish’s disgusted reaction, it was a stupid question to ask.

Either way, I think it’s about time to put Moss in a project where she can make us laugh without it coming with blood, torture, emotional trauma, and the like, don’t you? Better yet, give Offred 15 minutes at the Comedy Store! I know she’d kill.

Watch The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu