Was Elisabeth Moss Pregnant While Filming Season 6 of 'The Handmaid’s Tale'? Details

The much-anticipated sixth season of The Handmaid’s Tale returned to Hulu on April 8, 2025, dropping a generous three-episode premiere to keep fans busy. The final season runs 10 episodes total, wrapping up on May 27. There’s a lot that plays out in Season 6, including, spoiler alert, June (Elisabeth Moss) reconnecting with her mom.

She also has to venture into No Man’s Land to save Luke (O.T. Fagbenle) and Moira (Samira Wiley), who bravely take on a mission that goes very left field.

In the first few episodes, though, it's obvious that June is wearing unusually baggy clothing. Though not totally out of character, the dark, oversized wardrobe, plus the fact that she’s wearing a jacket through most of the first three episodes, has viewers wondering: Was Elisabeth Moss pregnant while filming Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale?

Elisabeth Moss wasn’t pregnant while filming Season 6 of The Handmaid’s Tale, but she was three months into her motherhood journey when filming began.

Production officially kicked off in September 2024, according to an Instagram post Elisabeth shared, which means her baby was likely born sometime in June. How ironic, right?

Although Elisabeth hasn’t confirmed her daughter’s exact birth date, she did reveal that she gave birth in 2024. Thanks to her interview on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in April 2025, we can narrow it down to around June or, at the latest, July 2024.

After asking where she was in her motherhood journey when filming began, and her confirming she was three months in, Andy acknowledged how tough it must’ve been to start filming (and directing, since Elisabeth also directs for the show). That was met with a deep sigh from Elisabeth, followed by a weary, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Still, she described motherhood as "the best and most challenging thing, as everyone who has kids knows… it’s amazing."

Aside from juggling motherhood and acting in Season 6, Elisabeth also admitted that directing came with its own challenges. She said the hardest part was making everyone wait while she reviewed a scene to make sure it didn’t need any tweaking.

For nearly all of The Handmaid’s Tale series, Elisabeth only played a mom on-screen — she wasn’t a mom in real life. However, the way she portrayed June being torn away from Hannah (Jordana Blake), or Agnes, as Gilead calls her, was so raw and real, it mirrored exactly how most moms would respond.

Her devotion (and emotions) to try and get her daughter back made it easy for fans to assume Elisabeth had kids of her own.

Even in Season 1, when June finds out she’s pregnant after Serena (Yvonne Strahovski) forces her to sleep with Nick (Max Minghella), and she eventually gives birth to her second child, Nicole, it was all just part of the script.

However, by the time Season 6 rolled around, viewers didn’t get to see any real baby bump, as Elisabeth had already welcomed her child just a few months before production on the final season began. But it still had an effect on her acting.

She revealed to Good Morning America at the beginning of April, "I definitely did think it had an effect," referring to motherhood and filming, adding, "It’s impossible not to think about the real child and to draw those parallels in a very emotional way."