Elisabeth Moss on The Handmaid's Tale finale and why she isn't saying goodbye just yet: 'June's story isn't over'

This article contains spoilers for The Handmaid's Tale season 6, episode 10, "The Handmaid's Tale."

After six seasons, Elisabeth Moss is finally done with her time as The Handmaid's Tale's June Osborne... or is she?

The series finale of the Emmy-winning Hulu drama features June, alive and well post-Boston rebellion, reuniting with loved ones — her mom and Nichole! Janine! Luke! The long-lost Emily in a major shocker! — and vowing to keep fighting the good fight to bring down Gilead, restore all of America, and get Hannah back once and for all. Oh, and she decides to write it all down in a book.

Ahead, Entertainment Weekly speaks with Moss, who opens up about getting Alexis Bledel back as Emily (and what the backup plan was if she had said no), what the role has meant to her life and career, and why she's not saying goodbye to June Osborne just yet. Plus, she reveals the "crazy" final shot of the show, which no one wanted to call "cut" on.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: When I spoke to series creator Bruce Miller, he told me that before the show even started you two had a conversation about how the series would end. What do you remember from that conversation, and how did the vision change?

ELISABETH MOSS: We definitely were talking about her recording the tapes, or starting to record the tapes. But it used to be somewhere else that she started recording the tapes, and then it morphed into her going back to the house. And the way he had written it was — and this is just an example of how it's so fluid and it's very difficult to divorce myself from all of the different decisions we've made — originally in the script, she went up and she sat on the steps outside the ruins of the Waterford house, and I said, no, no, no, no, no. Can we go inside the house? Can we build the interior of the house again and have her go up to this kind of almost cathedral-like space of her old bedroom? We have to go back there. That's where Offred is. And Bruce loved it. So that's the journey that I kind of remember.

It has been nine years since you first started working on the show.

Yeah, and there's so many decisions that go into this. I think we did an interview recently, Bruce and I, and there were some questions about different ways we could have ended the episode as far as, did you think about other ways? And we were like, are you kidding? We've explored everything. We're so methodical about every move, and that's why it's sometimes interesting to read what other people, fans and people who do recaps and stuff, how they break things down and how they analyze things because you're like, "Oh, wow, that's so cool. I never thought of that." Which is always interesting when you think you've thought of everything. Someone said recently, did you ever consider killing June? And we were like, what? No! And I was like, "Not a bad idea." [Laughs.]

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Well, speaking of things that do happen in the finale, Alexis Bledel, who left after season 4, popped back in to reprise her role as Emily. When did you first start having those conversations about her returning?

2023, I think, was when I first knew about that maybe. And my response was basically, well, yes, and now that you've told me, we actually have to do it, because now I'm not going to be able to let it go. And I spent the next year and a half stressing about it — longer, maybe until her deal was done, until she was on set. It was like, oh my God, are we going to pull this off? So it was the no-brainer for me. I mean, I think it's something we obviously wish we could have done even sooner, at least I did. I love Alexis so much. I love working with her, and I think she feels the same, but various life things get in the way.

But I think that for us and for June and for me playing June, it would've been really strange to end the show without having that character of Emily come back and being able to say goodbye to her in a way. I mean, it would've been fine. I guess we had a backup plan for if it didn't work. I didn't like the backup plan at all. [Laughs.] It was having somebody else be that person in June's story, and just now I can't imagine it any other way. I mean, there's the story part of it, which was super important. You need someone to come in and tell June that it's going to be okay that she can be a resistance leader and be a mom at the same time. And Emily is the only person that can really do that. Emily was the first one. Emily was the first person that June saw as a member of Mayday as a resistance fighter. She's been the sort of hero that June has looked up to for a long time, and she needed that person to be able to say to her, it's okay. You can do this, and it doesn't make you a bad mom.

We joked about June dying a moment ago, but of course, she does not. And given what we know about Margaret Atwood's sequel novel The Testaments — which is being adapted into a show now — would you be open to returning as June in some capacity on that series? Have there been conversations about that?

I think the thing that I love the most about our finale is that June's story isn't over. And obviously, I don't know, and even if I did know, I couldn't say what happens next, but I love that I don't necessarily have to say goodbye to that world and that character. I love that. I've finished shows before, and you definitely have a feeling of like, "This is it. This is the last time I'm going to get to be this person." And although I don't know yet if or when June's coming back, I love that she's not done. I love it. I love playing that character so much, and she's probably my favorite I've ever played at this point. And so of course, I don't want that to end.

You said this was maybe your favorite role you've ever played — why is that? And what will you take with you from your time on The Handmaid's Tale?

It's been nine years, which is crazy. It's been not just a part of my life. It has really been my life for the past nine years. So much has changed for me both personally and professionally, though I really don't make too much distinction between the two. [Laughs.] Anyway, I became an executive producer on this show. I really hadn't produced anything before, and I then became a director and then became a mom. And so my life has changed so much in the past nine years and has grown so much. It's just so interwoven into the fabric of my life. I think the thing that I will think of is something very beautiful that I think the audience and the viewers feel, but you don't necessarily see — you do see it actually, but you may not know you're seeing it — is the work of this cast and this crew. 

What I saw them do in these final two episodes was the most extraordinary and inspiring thing. Every single cast member, and every single crew member took it upon themselves personally to do their absolute best work. And it wasn't for anybody but themselves and their own personal integrity. They wanted it to be the best work that they'd ever done because they were so proud of this show and so proud of having their journey on this show, and it felt so personal to everybody. And that's the thing that I will remember.

What was the final thing you guys shot for The Handmaid's Tale? What was that day like?

So the final main unit day was the scene in episode 9 — we called it the ambush scene — so it was the one under the bridge where June and the handmaids get ambushed, and then June gets taken away and put in jail. That was the final main unit day that we did. What I think of as the final day, was the next day, which was a second unit day that we had to do. And it was a reduced crew. It was a lot of people, but it wasn't the whole kit and caboodle. So it kind of felt like it was just us as a show. We kind of didn't have a lot of the people that come out the last day and everybody wants to see the last day and everybody wants to kind of be a part of it. Those people weren't necessarily there, and so it felt like it was just the people that make the show, and it felt like it was just us and we just had to shoot some fire stuff. The bonfire, we had to explode the van for episode 9. It was just a day of fire, half day, half night.

And at the end of the night, I should say, it started to snow perfectly, just started to snow just as we literally called a wrap on The Handmaid's Tale. And it started to snow beautifully, and that was it. And it was perfect. It was exactly the way it should be. It felt like it was just us. I remember sitting watching the final shot, which was — I don't think I've told anyone this, so this is exclusive for you — the final shot that we did was burning the cape that happens in episode 10. That was the final shot of The Handmaid's Tale, was burning that handmaid's cape. Isn't that crazy? It wasn't planned. It wasn't like, this would be amazing if we did this as the final shot. It just was the best thing to do at the end, it made sense. We went to the small bonfire. That was the last thing we had to do. We were going to burn the cape, and then we sat there at the monitor, me, the DP, and a few other people. We sat there and we watched that cape burn and we watched it burn, and we did not need to keep shooting. We did not need to keep rolling. We just kept rolling, and we all kind of got tears in our eyes because we all knew that the minute I said cut, that was it. This was our last take and nobody wanted that, but, I finally looked at my DP and we both had tears in our eyes, and I kind of nodded, and I went, yeah, that's a cut. And that was it.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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