Christina Hendricks

On Sunday night, Mad Men’s Joan Harris did something unthinkable, and the phrase "indecent proposal" returned to the popular lexicon for the first time since 1993. Prior to the episode’s debut, the title ("The Other Woman") had fans fervently speculating that Joan and Don Draper might consummate their Christmastime flirtation. Instead, a much darker transgression took place. "What price would we pay, what behavior would we forgive, if they weren’t pretty, if they weren’t temperamental, if they weren’t beyond our reach and a little out of our control?" Don purred at the Jaguar meeting, as Joan relinquished control—the thing she has always prided herself on maintaining—to the least deserving man on the planet, for a once-in-a-lifetime payoff. The emotionally wrenching episode was the best so far this season, and a tour de force for actress Christina Hendricks (whose hourglass beauty gets more press than her considerable acting chops). In an exclusive conversation with GQ, Hendricks walks us through Joan’s fateful decision, reveals why Joan hasn’t hooked up with Don, and explains why kicking that no-good Greg to the curb was so satisfying.

···

Christina Hendricks: It was a crazy episode the other day.

GQ: Yes it was! So tell me your reaction to first learning about that storyline. I’d imagine it’s the kind of thing that could make a person nervous.

Christina Hendricks: [Laughs] Honestly, Matt [Weiner] had told me about that storyline, I think it was either last season or the season before. He’d had it in his mind, and was planning on using it before, but the development of the characters just didn’t get to that point. So I’d had some knowledge of it for quite some time. Yeah, it makes you nervous! ’Cause you think, well, how are people going to respond to Joan doing this? But I think Matt’s writing and the way it was done shows what people will do out of necessity and for survival. I thought it was beautifully written.

GQ: Yes. Although the episode was extremely hard to watch, I didn’t feel like the show itself was exploiting Joan; she was an active player in the events.

Christina Hendricks: You know, there’s a moment where Pete is pitching this idea, and he says, "Haven’t we all done something, made a mistake one night for free?" All the men in this office have done sort of off-color things, and acted in ways that we’ve all hissed at throughout the entire series. She acted like one of the guys, to a certain extent. And she’s a single mother. When Lane comes in [with the $50,000 offer] and she says, "It’s four times as much as I make in the entire year"—are you kidding me? How moral are we all? How much can it help my family, and how much can it help my son? And once it’s done, it’s done; it never has to be spoken about again. But it’s a terrible price to pay.

GQ: At what moment do you think she decided to go through with it?

Christina Hendricks: I think that when Lane comes in and talks about that money being fleeting, but that a partnership could continue to keep her afloat with her son. I think that was convincing. You know, she hasn’t been taking money from Roger—there was a scene a couple episodes ago when she was like, "I don’t want it, stop"—so she’s doing it all on her own. [The partnership] really could change her family’s life.

GQ: Hypothetically, had Joan known that Don was sticking up for her, do you think that would have made her reconsider?

Christina Hendricks: [Pause] I don’t know. I don’t know that it would have. But I think that it meant a lot that one person out of all those people—not even Roger!—actually cared. A lot of what last season was about in terms of Joan was getting no respect. These new guys were in the office and they were treating her so poorly, she’s been there forever and she’s running the ship and she’s getting basically shit on every day at work. And here, this scenario comes up, and the father of her child doesn’t even say, absolutely not. So at least one person, out of this entire crew, cared.

Get more information about Christina Hendricks in Firefly

GQ: One of the most powerful moments in the episode was seeing Joan lock eyes with Don at the partner’s meeting, both of them knowing what had happened. What was going through Joan’s head at that instant?

Christina Hendricks: As I was playing it, it was sort of, "Don’t judge me, I’m in this room," "What’s done is done," and "Thank you," all at once. It’s this sort of, here I am and let’s move forward. And just, really owning it, and yet, we’re not gonna discuss it.

GQ: I want to touch on a couple of other Joan milestones from this season. Let’s talk about when you kicked your husband to the curb.

Christina Hendricks: Well—everyone knew he had to go at some point, right? I mean, you can’t rape your wife in the office and not expect to go away.

GQ: And that was the first time anyone had ever talked about the rape, right?

Christina Hendricks: Yeah. It was the first time it was mentioned and I think it was a long time coming, for the audience in particular. I think everyone kept thinking he was going to go off to war and die at war. But I think Matt probably had a very good time keeping him around while people were going, "What’s going on with this guy?" [Laughs] And he just kept being there and he just kept coming home! And I would have been disappointed if there wasn’t a moment that the rape, and that instant, wasn’t mentioned. So I found it very satisfying that she finally got to say, "You’re not a good man. And you know exactly what I’m talking about." And every viewer knows exactly what you’re talking about too, so it’s just this very satisfying moment, I think.

GQ: The other moment I wanted to discuss was when Joan and Don had that wonderful flirtation at the bar at Christmas. It seemed like it would have been very easy for them to go off together and run away from their realities for a night. What do you think stopped Joan from doing that?

Christina Hendricks: You know what? That moment feels flirtatious and there’s definitely a flirtation in there—but I think it’s also just two people enjoying one another. She needed help in that moment, she needed to be respected and feel beautiful and feel like her company was valued. Besides [her affair with] Roger, I don’t think Joan goes to work very often the next day with the walk of shame; I don’t think that either of them would do that. I think they’re both too wise about office politics to incorporate that into their already-tricky lives at the moment. Can you imagine, all of a sudden adding another layer to that workplace? [Laughs] But I think it’s wonderful to see those two characters together. We haven’t seen them together that often, and there’s an incredible mutual respect that I don’t see with too many of the other characters one-on-one with each other. And they’ve always been that way. There’s always been a mutual respect between the two of them. And I thought it was just really nice to see him being really caring, and how she accepted it from him.

GQ: What have you discovered about Joan in season five that you didn’t know before?

Christina Hendricks: Hmm. I think as the seasons go on, there’s a reiteration of how strong she is, and how fiercely she’ll protect her world. Certainly, this episode on Sunday illustrated that. And I think she’s a fighter and a survivor, and all of these scenarios just solidify that for me. I’m trying to think... I mean, I think it was nice to just reveal some history about Joan with her mother and that relationship. To see that, oh, okay, this is the kind of woman that Joan grew up around, no wonder she’s sort of bossy and, oh, her father was a philanderer and there’s a lot of anger there between her parents. Just learning a lot of those things I thought was a nice reveal for Joan.