Elisabeth Moss Responds to 'Handmaid's Tale' Fan with Rare Defense of Scientology

Elisabeth Moss responded to a fan who brought up the perceived similarities between Scientology and Gilead, The Handmaid's Tale's totalitarian society ruled by a fictional fundamentalist regime

In recent years, Elisabeth Moss has remained largely silent about her involvement with the Church of Scientology — but earlier this week, the actress touched on the subject.

On Monday, Moss, 35, took to Instagram to share a photo of herself at an event for The Handmaid’s Tale ahead of the upcoming Emmy Awards.

“Thank you for coming out everyone last night, your love and support of the show means more to us than I’ll ever be able to express in words. Truly,” she captioned the post. “And now we get to go work on bringing you season 2!!! Which by the way is going to blow your minds…”

The comment section of the post was flooded with admiration and praise, and Moss, who nabbed an Emmy nomination for her role on the hit Hulu series, took the time to answer a few — including responding to one fan, who brought up the perceived similarities between Scientology and Gilead, the totalitarian society ruled by a fictional fundamentalist regime in Handmaid’s.

“Love this adaptation so much,” Instagram user moelybanks wrote. “Question though, does it make you think twice about Scientology? Both Gilead and Scientology both believe that all outside sources (aka news) are wrong or evil… it’s just very interesting.”

“That’s actually not true at all about Scientology,” Moss responded. “Religious freedom and tolerance and understanding the truth and equal rights for every race, religion and creed are extremely important to me. The most important things to me probably. And so Gilead and THT hit me on a very personal level. Thanks for the interesting question!”

The fan appeared to take Moss’ rebuttal in stride.

“Thank you for taking the time to try and explain a little,” the Instagram user wrote. “Either way, you do you and imma do me and if that makes us happy i supposed that’s all that matters.”

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The Mad Men alum was introduced to Scientology via her family and explained in a 2012 interview with The Telegraph that she made a conscious decision to embrace it.

“It’s not the same thing as going to church on Sunday,” she said. “It’s self-applied. It involves reading — you have to make a choice.”

“Some people say that yoga really helps them to feel centered,” she said of what drew her to the religious system. “And some people feel that being vegan is something that makes them more of themselves. Or Kaballah. Or there’s Buddhism or whatever. I mean, I think that for me it’s one thing that has helped me at times, and it’s kind of as simple as that.”

In recent years, she has rarely spoken publicly on the topic, telling The Guardian last year that everyone has the right to their own privacy.

“It is weird for me to be put in the position where I am like, ‘No, I can’t. I don’t really want to talk about this,’ ” she admitted. “You feel kind of like, I am a nice person who likes to talk about stuff. I also get the curiosity. I get the fascination. I become fascinated with things that are none of my business as well. I am just fascinated when someone breaks up with somebody. I want to know all about it. I am very interested in what people are wearing, and all of that kind of thing, but you have a right to your privacy.”