Elisabeth Moss was 'freaking out' over 'Handmaid's Tale' Emmy dancers

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — Count Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss among the fans of host Stephen Colbert's opening Emmy number, which featured a chorus line in red outfits inspired by The Handmaid's Tale.

"I loved the dancers. I was freaking out," Moss told reporters backstage after the show won multiple Emmys, including an acting statuette for her and best drama series honors for the Hulu show, a first for a streaming service. "I think they should be in Season 2. I think we should go in a different direction."

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The elated actress also acknowledged a couple of expletives during her acceptance speech: "You do have a weird out-of-body experience," Moss said.

On a more serious note, Moss said Handmaid's Tale, based on Margaret Atwood's acclaimed 1985 novel that is set in a dystopic world of horrific oppression against women, is the type of project she seeks as an actor.

"It's my bread and butter," she said. "It's such an incredible honor. The book has had such an impact on so many people."

When asked to compare Handmaid's Tale's Gilead to the real world, series creator Bruce Miller set some distance between the two.

"I think it's pretty far from reality. We have problems and differences and lots of things to fix in this country (but) Gilead is a pretty extreme place," he said. People "may want different things for America, but they don't want that."

Atwood, however, said it could happen. "Nothing went into the book that people hadn't done at some point in time in some place. … One takeaway would be: Never believe it can never happen here, which was one of the premises I used for the book."