Christina Hendricks, the Mad Men actress who was talked about her physique more than her talent

Christina Hendricks

Born: May 3, 1975 in Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

She rose to global fame as Joan in Mad Men, but the media were only talking about her imposing physique rather than her acting work. Six years after the series ended, she is still working in television and two years ago she divorced actor Geoffrey Arend.

At age 40, Christina Hendricks said goodbye to Joan and Mad Men, the greatest success of her career and the character with which most of the audience met her. Six years later, the actress has left behind the many and insistent comments about her physique, continues to work on television exploring new registers in thriller or comedy, and for two years she has enjoyed being single.

Christina Hendriks was born on May 3, 1975 in Knoxville, Tennessee, the daughter of a psychologist and a forestry agent. Due to their father’s profession, the family moved from one city to another often, so their mother encouraged Christina and her older brother to participate in the drama school in Twin Falls, Idaho, as a way of doing friends.

Natural blonde, with 10 years Hendriks began to dye her hair imitating Ana of green tiles. And after a new move, this time to Fairfax, Virginia, Christina began to suffer bullying . According to the actress told The Telegraph, she felt that she was an outcast and her high school classmates harassed her for being goth, her only refuge being the theater.

After finishing her studies, she signed for the IMG modeling agency, moving to New York at the age of 18. She combined her work as a mannequin with a few advertisements, and as she revealed herself, her hand is the one featured on the American Beauty poster.

At the end of the 90s, Dio Hendricks jumped into acting and, after several years of episodic and supporting roles in series such as ER or Firefly , he signed for Mad Men (2007-2015). For seven seasons, the actress played Joan Holloway, the chief secretary of the advertising agency where the series took place, set in the 60s.

Although she received six Emmy Award nominations for best supporting actress, Hendricks repeatedly complained about the obsession of the media and much of the world for her imposing physique. In fact, according to a study carried out by an association of plastic surgeons in the United Kingdom published by The Daily Telegraph, the demand for breast implants increased by 10% in 2010, among other reasons, due to the influence of his character.

Thus, Hendricks was praised for portraying another model of woman on television, less skeletal and more curvy, but felt that her performance was not valued. “I was killing myself at work and people were just talking about my body,” he told GQ magazine . However, he acknowledged that until then his figure had been a problem rather than an asset.

“A couple of times the client said, ‘We think she’s a fantastic actress, but she ‘s too big for this role,'” Hendricks recalled of some castings. When I got over them, “they usually told me, ‘We have to fix it, hide it, you have a lot of chest. Can you wear that top in another way?’ But on Mad Men it was, ‘You look fantastic in that dress,'” she added.

During the broadcast of Mad Men , Hendricks made his film debut, starring in films such as Drive (2011), Lost River (2014) or Dark Places (2015). After the famous series ended, he has continued working on television with series such as the crime drama Tin Star (2017-2020) or the comedy Good Girls (2018-).

Personally, Hendricks was married to actor Geoffrey Arend between 2009 and 2019. The couple jointly announced their divorce after 12 years of relationship.