Elisabeth Moss wanted to live up to Casey Affleck’s expectations when they worked together

Elisabeth Moss tried to be as good as Casey Affleck when he directed her in his new movie.

Casey wrote, directed and also stars in Light of My Life, a film he began writing nine years ago, with the movie premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this month (Feb19).

Light of My Life is a dystopian father/ daughter tale, with Casey taking on the role of Dad, Elisabeth as Mum and Anna Pniowsky as the daughter, Rag.

“I’m a tremendous fan of his as an actor so it’s really cool to be directed by someone like that because, basically, you just want to do whatever they tell you so you can try to be as good as they are,” The Handmaid's Tale actress gushed to Deadline. “He was extremely collaborative and generous in letting me create the role, give any script notes or ideas, and really contribute to my part of the story.

“As an actor, it’s so helpful to be a part of a process like that and to be able to really make something your own, which he gave to me as a director. There was a lot of trust because he knew the material so well and knew exactly what he wanted. I just followed his lead and tried to help tell his story.”

Elisabeth shot all of her scenes in one day, and although her part was only small, the 36-year-old said it felt like she filmed an entire movie in the space of a few short hours.

She added that it helped that her scenes were shot mostly in sequence.

“I was bummed when we were finished because I wanted to do more - I felt like I just got started,” she confessed. “But in those circumstances you just have to kind of leave it all out on the dance floor because all you get is that one day and you don’t have time to ease into it. You start at 100 MPH and just speed up from there.”