Elisabeth Moss stars in the Fear Itself episode "Eater." She plays a cop matching wits with a serial killer who is, as the title suggests, an eater. Moss was attracted to the psychological drama of the story, though there are definitely horror payoffs.
Elisabeth Moss Polices Fear Itself
"It was funny because when I read the script, it seemed much less horror than a great story to me," said Moss. "When I made it, I realized it was definitely more of a horror thing than I originally anticipated, and that's sort of a testament to the script. It was really well written, the character had a lot of depth to it, the twists and turns were really interesting, and everything else is kind of added on top. Those things don't work unless there's an actual, good story that you're going to follow, and that's what I really loved about it."
For a cop to be trapped in a snowstorm with a killer is definitely an extreme situation. However, actors may be used to chaos on film sets.
"That's what filmmaking tends to be a lot, is there's specific things that are under your control, but there are things that are going to happen that you're never, ever going to be able to plan for. Like it's not going to snow in Canada in March or whatever it is. Those things you can never plan for. I think that's what makes it fun and hard about what we do, is dealing with those things that come up that you didn't know were going to happen and making them work."
Fear Itself has added challenges because each episode is a standalone story. "Then when you have to make them work in the box of eight days, it becomes even more exciting. That's one of the things I love about what we do is you never know who you're going to work with. You never know what they're going to be like. You never know what's going to happen. It makes it fun."
Fear Itself episodes are like mini movies, but with the pressure of a TV schedule. "You have eight days to shoot a movie basically. As everyone knows, you don't shoot it in order. So when you're doing something that has such a definite arc from somebody who doesn't know that something's going to happen to them in the beginning to being completely terrified and running around, usually bleeding or something at the end, it's like you have to really watch your step and be very aware of where you are in the story. That's one of the most difficult things, the different levels of fear. It's not broad. It's very subtle and you have to really keep track of how scared you are, which is not actually as easy as you would think. So for me, that was one of the most difficult things, is really just being on top of it and making sure the story was being told in the right order."
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