A version of this story about Elisabeth Moss first appeared in the “Dark Horses We Love” section of the Actors/Directors/Screenwriters issue of TheWrap’s Oscar magazine.
It started with an image — a female rock star, at the top of her game but addicted to drugs, holding a baby — along with the idea to start not with the rise to fame, but with the descent.
Those were the keys when writer-director Alex Ross Perry and actress Elisabeth Moss first started talking about “Her Smell,” a harrowing rock ‘n’ roll fever dream that stars Moss as Becky Something, a self-destructive ’90s riot grrrl/punk singer whose world falls apart over three chaotic, assaultive and extended scenes, and who tries to figure out if she deserves redemption over the film’s final two acts.