This week, Elisabeth Moss and Lindsey McManus are celebrating the debut of Apple TV’s “Imperfect Women,” the first project the pair picked up after launching their Love & Squalor production banner six years ago.
“The first thing that we ever discussed together as a partnership, which was months before we ever officially had a partnership, was this book, ‘Imperfect Women,’” Moss, who stars in the Apple TV thriller series alongside Kate Mara and Kerry Washington, told Variety.
With no deal in place, no contract signed and fears that McManus was going to team up with another partner (“I won’t say who it is, but once I heard who it was, I was like, ‘She’s definitely going to pick them. But now it seems really funny to me,” Moss noted), Moss sent McManus the Araminta Hall novel in the fall of 2019 in hopes they would one day work together.
McManus — who previously ran Diablo Cody’s production company Vita Vera for three years and was formerly a scripted television and talent agent at WME — read it and loved it and encouraged Moss to acquire the rights. Two months later, “that became the first thing we ever took out” to studios and networks, Moss said.
“It was all just based on emails and–,” Moss said. “Vibes,” McManus jumped in, adding: “We were in meeting rooms together, just sort of winging it.” “People would be like, how long have you been together? Three weeks!” Moss said.
This pitching process occurred during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when the TV and film industry — along with almost every other sector — came to a screeching halt. This meant a long road to the screen for “Imperfect Women,” but lots of time for McManus and Moss to build up their producing vision for Love & Squalor, which still relies largely on “vibes,” or rather the importance of trusting their instincts and collaborating with like-minded individuals.
“We did the thing that people did, which was, we just met with everyone we liked. Whether it was people that hadn’t kind of hit yet, like Paul Mescal, or conversations with Julia Garner,” Moss said.
“Anyone that we thought of, we would email our reps or their reps and be like, hey, will they do a meeting with us?” McManus, who serves as president of film and television for Love & Squalor, said.
That’s led to partnerships and mentorships with Hollywood players including Denise DiNovi, Warren Littlefield, Lucky Chap, Simpson Street, Red Hour, Great Scott, A24 and Appian Way.
Between 2020 and now, the “Mad Men” alum has produced or executive produced six titles, three alongside McManus: the TV series “Shining Girls” and “The Veil,” and their first feature, “Shell,” directed by Moss’ “Handmaid’s Tale” co-star Max Minghella. (Over the past half-decade of working together, Moss and McManus respectively took on a new kind of project: each became first-time mothers.
With several more projects on deck, Moss says she and McManus — who have a first-look deal with Hulu and Disney’s 20th Television through Love & Squalor — aren’t just adding EP credits for kicks.
“From the beginning of ‘Handmaid’s,’ I really wanted to be a real producer and really be involved in things and really learn,” Moss said. “And so I really wanted somebody who’s going to do that; that wasn’t going to be considering it as just helping this vanity title out.”
For Moss’ part, she’s been doing the job of an executive producer since before she was officially credited with the title, according to “The Handmaid’s Tale” EP Warren Littlefield, who says Moss was heavily involved in production aspects well beyond her scope as an actor during the first season of Hulu’s Emmy-winning adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel.
“Never underestimate Lizzie, because her hunger to learn and to grow is amazing,” Littlefield told Variety. “After that triumphant Season 1, I remember at the Producers Guild Awards and I accepted the award on behalf of the show, I remember looking out at that crowd, and I said, ‘So Lizzie Moss actor, not bad. Lizzie Moss producer, look out.’ And there was such a sense of applause and a sense of understanding and admiration and that meant a lot to her. But she earned those words and it was clear in Season 1. And then we could have had her be a co-EP for another season, and we just went to MGM and said, ‘No, you know what? She’s an EP. She’s absolutely an equal, and we should just accelerate that for year two, in terms of credit for her. And everyone agreed.”
Following years of working closely with Moss as an actor, producer and eventually director on “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Littlefield has now teamed with her and McManus for the sequel series “The Testaments,” premiering April 8, and another upcoming Hulu project, “Conviction.”
“Lindsey brings her own knowledge and experience into each discussion about material and its execution and yet somehow manages to also be completely in sync with Lizzie,” Littlefield said. “I guess that’s the definition of a partnership.”
With Love & Squalor’s multiple projects in development and some already released since the company formed, McManus and Moss see the debut of “Imperfect Women” six years later as symbolic of their company’s commitment to patience in the name of quality.
“There’s always the creative side of it, which is the book is so good, and it has a really specific structure where it’s told from these three different points of view, and figuring that out, or finding the person who could figure that out with us, and finding the home that wanted that version of it, that was something we had to figure out,” Moss said, noting that Apple was “on board very, very early” in the process.
Complicating matters for “Imperfect Women” was Moss’ commitment to starring as rebel handmaid June Osbourne in the final seasons of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which ate up her schedule until it wrapped in February 2025. Then McManus and Moss’ attention could turn to completing “Imperfect Women,” which Moss stars in alongside Kerry Washington and Kate Mara.
As McManus and Moss promote the launch of “Imperfect Women” on Apple TV Wednesday, they’re prepping for the April 8 release of the Chase Infiniti-led “The Testaments.” For this “Handmaid’s Tale” project, Moss has been overseeing aspects of production she’s become an expert on over the years, like Hulu’s version of the dystopian world of Gilead.
“Even though ‘The Testaments’ is so new in so many ways — it’s much more YA-geared — as much as you can be in that world,” Moss said. “It’s obviously almost an entirely new cast, it has a slightly different look, too. There are definitely things that are super different intentionally, but because there was this prior existing IP and a lot of the same crew, it was kind of easy to just be, like, ‘You guys are good, right?. The best part for me about having a partner is me getting to do less sometimes, because I do have the acting job to do, and on ‘Imperfect Women,’ I had this other job to do to be able to go like, ‘I am going to let you have that prep call. I’m gonna let you be in that meeting, I don’t have to be.’”
That mindset has extended as Love & Squalor has grown, with Moss and McManus adding Maura Towey as director of development and Carlota Pino as director of operations.
“Our goal is to get to keep making stuff and have ownership,” McManus said. “Like, if there was something above the doorway, it’s ‘Make Stuff.’ We are so lucky — not lucky, because that’s actually the wrong word — we are so grateful to have been in business so consistently since starting. We have not stopped being in production since starting this company, and we know that that is rare.”
