Elisabeth Moss Explains Why Angelina Jolie Was ‘Incredibly Intimidating’ on ‘Girl, Interrupted’ Film Set

Elisabeth Moss recalled working on the tense set of the award-winning 1999 film Girl, Interrupted, with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie. While appearing on SiriusXM’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa” in a recent interview, the Handmaid’s Tale star, 41, explained why she found Angelina, 48, “intimidating” to work with at the time.

“There were two kind of camps. There was the Winona Ryder camp and the Angelina Jolie Camp,” Elisabeth pointed out. “I was in the Winona Ryder camp and the Angelina Jolie camp was really cool. Those were the really cool girls. I was so intimidated by the Angelina Jolie camp. I had no thoughts of ever being able to be in that camp. It was so cool. It was all the cool girls.”

She then rehashed how tension occurred “off camera but [it was] based on what was on camera,” referring to Angelina and Winona’s characters. Angelina played Lisa Rowe, and Winona, 52, played Susanna Kaysen, who become enemies in the film’s plot.

Despite feeling uncomfortable at the time, Elisabeth acknowledged that Angelina is “lovely” and has “spoken” with the Oscar winner in recent years.

“I’ve spoken to Angelina since then, and she’s lovely, but at the time, it was just incredibly intimidating,” The Veil series star noted. “I’ve never brought it up, and I’m sure she would have no idea what I was talking about anyway. But I was just not — I was definitely not cool enough to be in her camp.”

Girl, Interrupted follows Winona’s character, Susanna, after she suffers from a nervous breakdown and an overdose. She is sent to the psychiatric hospital Claymoore, where she befriends other patients, including Elisabeth’s schizophrenic character, Polly “Torch” Clark. Susanna and Angelina’s character, Lisa, initially become friends, but Lisa is a manipulative sociopath who convinces Susanna to stop going to therapy and taking her medication.

Elisabeth’s latest interview comes amid a busy time in her career. Not only is she pregnant and expecting her first child, but she has also been promoting her brand-new Hulu show, The Veil. While speaking exclusively with Hollywood Life, the Hulu star teased her complex performance.

“I’ve always wanted to do [something in] the spy genre, but this was like that times 100 because Imogen is so many different people,” she noted. “And the person that you meet at the beginning is the different person from the one you meet 10 minutes later, to the different person that you’ll meet in the second episode, so on and so forth. So, for me, it was like this opportunity to play 10 characters in one project.”