Christina Hendricks

Intro

Christina Hendricks is an actor known for Joan Holloway, later Joan Harris, in Mad Men and Beth Boland in Good Girls. Her work also includes feature films, stage performance and animation, with voice roles such as Zarina in The Pirate Fairy and Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4. Those credits offer more than one route into her career. The long-running television characters are useful starting points, while the films and voice performances show how she works within different genres and kinds of ensemble.

Career snapshot

Hendricks's television work before and around Mad Men included Beggars and Choosers, Kevin Hill, ER, Life and Firefly. AMC's biography also records guest appearances in Without a Trace and Cold Case. These earlier credits locate Joan within a broader history of television work, rather than treating the role as an isolated arrival. They also give viewers a way to compare a sustained ensemble character with parts that must establish their place in a story over a shorter span of time.

The entry point

Mad Men places Joan at the center of much of the office's daily organization and social knowledge. Hendricks's Emmy-nominated performance makes that position more complicated than an efficient professional surface alone would suggest. A useful rewatch can follow how Joan handles a room, manages what she reveals and responds when others underestimate her. Those details connect her to the series' larger questions about work and status while keeping the character's own ambitions and relationships visible within the advertising-world ensemble.

Screen identity and style

Good Girls gives Hendricks another sustained role as Beth Boland, alongside Retta as Ruby and Mae Whitman as Annie. In her 2019 Awards Daily interview, Hendricks discussed the character and the strong connections among the women at the center of the series. The combination of family pressure and criminal activity creates a different setting from Joan's workplace. Comparing Beth and Joan can therefore focus on the particular choices each character makes, rather than assuming that two assertive women must be variations on the same part.

Collaborations and patterns

Animation brings another aspect of her work into view. Disney's The Pirate Fairy centers on Zarina, a fairy whose interest in blue pixie dust takes her away from Pixie Hollow and into an alliance with pirates. Hendricks supplies Zarina's voice, with Mae Whitman and Tom Hiddleston among the cast. The assignment depends on voice, rhythm and response rather than the actor's visible physical presence. Its fantasy setting also provides a contrast to the social environments in which her television characters usually operate.

Era reflection

Hendricks's screen collaborations include God's Pocket, directed by Mad Men colleague John Slattery and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, as well as Drive, Ginger & Rosa and Detachment. She also appeared in the New York Philharmonic's presentation of Stephen Sondheim's Company. Her later voice work as Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4 gave her another animated character to discuss in the Awards Daily interview. Taken together, these credits connect recurring television work with independent film, musical performance and studio animation, each with its own demands on an ensemble member.

Legacy and rediscovery

The gallery pairs a photograph from the 2005 Serenity premiere with a separate 2014 PaleyFest appearance honoring Mad Men. Both show Hendricks in public settings rather than as Joan or Beth, and their dates identify different moments in her career. A compact viewing route can begin with Mad Men, continue to Good Girls and then compare a voice performance in The Pirate Fairy or Toy Story 4. The changes in setting, format and available performance tools make those comparisons particularly useful for looking beyond a single celebrated role.

Selected roles

• Mad Men: Joan Holloway / Joan Harris — Television
• Good Girls: Beth Boland — Television
• The Pirate Fairy: Zarina (voice) — 2014 film
• Toy Story 4: Gabby Gabby (voice) — Film

A career in pictures

Separate premiere and PaleyFest photographs document Hendricks in 2005 and 2014.

Mad Men at PaleyFest (2014)

Christina Hendricks

Photograph by Dominick D.

Serenity premiere (2005)

Christina Hendricks

Photograph by Raven Underwood.

Rewatch notes

• Hendricks plays Joan in Mad Men.
• She plays Beth Boland in Good Girls.
• She voices Zarina in The Pirate Fairy and Gabby Gabby in Toy Story 4.