Mad Men actress Christina Hendricks on new role in Tin Star

“I am 100 per cent not an early riser,” says actress Christina Hendricks, “but I go to work every day at 6.15am, so this is perfect timing.”

The transatlantic twist means our conversation takes place at 6.30am New York time, so even if Christina doesn’t see herself as an early riser, she is many things besides.

A hard worker is certainly one of those things, and Christina, 42, is clearly keen to get her work ethic across. For example, her decision to spend about 18 months with an acting coach when she first turned to professional acting was because 

“I didn’t just want to be a model who all of a sudden was acting”.

Even when talk turns to her role as Joan in 1960s-set drama Mad Men, which began in 2007 and won her international acclaim, it’s the work that went before that Christina talks about, saying that the show’s success has changed her life immeasurably. 

“I always was appreciative and knew that I was so lucky to go from series to series. I was doing a lot of other things in between, too,” she points out. “I was working really hard. Every time a show got cancelled I would go and do it again and I was living the life of a Los Angeles actor, but working, and it was fantastic. 

“Mad Men changed everything in my life. It just changed absolutely everything. The career opportunities that have opened up, the places that it has taken us, the people that it has let us meet. It’s just extraordinary. It is hard to even describe what it has done.”

She’s been on that journey with husband Geoffrey Arend, a fellow actor who she married in 2009 after being introduced by Mad Men co-star Vincent Kartheiser.

The pair live in New York and Los Angeles due to work commitments, and while famous couples can struggle to escape selfie requests, Christina says that they almost get to take it in turns. “It really ebbs and flows,” she says of her experience of fame. “It is very interesting, the longer you are off air on television.

“My husband is on a show called Madam Secretary and we can’t walk down the street. At this point they just turn to me and go, ‘Would you mind taking this picture? I’m sorry, you must have to do this all the time.’ They have no idea.

“But, a year ago, it was very different. As soon as you are taken out of someone’s living room on a daily basis, it fades very quickly. So it is nice. I am able to walk around the streets of New York right now pretty anonymously.

“It’s also being able to see it from different angles – to be incredibly aware not to take things for granted or expect things, and to appreciate where you are at that time.”

One thing that the success of Mad Men certainly has done is give Christina a great choice of interesting roles. She’s worked with cult Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn on both Drive and The Neon Demon, and starred in her Drive co-star Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River.

Christina even held her own opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman and Richard Jenkins in heavyweight drama God’s Pocket (directed by Mad Men co-star John Slattery) and it’s fair to say she doesn’t shy away from darker, less conventional choices.

“I like watching those kinds of things,” she says. “I am drawn to these characters and the atmosphere on all of those films is very interesting to me. 

“The nice thing is that I was playing the quirky best friend before Mad Men – the shy, nervous person in the office. I auditioned for a million things where they said, ‘Oh, we just don’t see that she could be a cop or a lawyer. She just seems too sweet.’ All of a sudden after Mad Men, everyone just thought I was some kind of bad girl, thanks to Joan. 

“All of a sudden I am getting these really powerful female roles and making really strong decisions. It is really fun, because I got to do the other stuff earlier and I still get to do some of that stuff. I still get to play very different characters. I am able to explore a lot of those other things in film, but in television people do tend to come to me with these strong, females, which are great.”

The latest of these is Tin Star, a 10-part revenge thriller on Sky Atlantic starring Tim Roth as a British cop who relocates to Canada with his family. Christina plays Elizabeth Bradshaw, the corporate liaison for an oil company which arrives in town trying to sweet-talk locals into a major new development.

The series gets dark very quickly, but Christina says her character is far from two-dimensional.

“She is ambitious,” she says. “I think her intentions are well-meaning, but she is in a no-win situation to a certain extent. But she is a survivor whatever she is going to do. I like the idea of playing this kind of woman, a very interesting, different kind of woman. Then, of course, when Tim got attached to it, it was a no-brainer.”

The idea of Roth as a Brit abroad brings us to Christina’s father, a Brummie who relocated to the States and joined the US military. The British connection is a link that Christina remains proud of, and she says her decision to keep a dual passport has proven handy over the years.

“Oh, I love it,” she says of her British heritage. “I am a huge Anglophile anyway. It has made it easy for me to work on several occasions, just as far as paperwork and that whole process goes.

Just having that passport makes it easier for me to jump in between the two places and just go straight to work, which is nice. Plus I carry both of them with me, so when I am going through passport control I can choose who I want to be that day depending on how long the line is.”

In fact, Christina lived in London from 1996 to 1997 while working as a model and talks about finding a love of Indian food and staying in town until she ran out of money. 

She recently returned to the UK to film forthcoming Agatha Christie adaptation Crooked House alongside Gillian Anderson and Glenn Close, and says she’d even like to return for more. The suggestion of a London stage role such as Sienna Miller, her co-star in another forthcoming movie The Burning Woman, brings a very positive response.

“Ooh yes, I would love to,” she says. “I can’t wait to see Sienna in her show. I might be able to come over. I am quite jealous of her. I would love to do something. A couple of things have come around, but it just hasn’t been the right thing yet.” 

It’d be a surprise if she had the time at the moment. There are several films in the can, Tin Star, and work with Mad Men series creator Matthew Weiner on his new Amazon project, The Romanoffs. 

Busy is an understatement.

One happy side-effect of creating such a collection of work is that the unwelcome attention on body shape that followed Christina throughout Mad Men’s run has diminished and it’s a change she welcomes.

“Yes, it has slowed down, thankfully. People have been asking me about my work, which is really wonderful,” she says. “I’m sure that a lot of that had to do with the costumes for Mad Men and people were very excited by that fashion, and it was new to everyone – old but new again. It definitely focused on figure-flattering items and it was very stylish. But now I have been wearing big, baggy sweatpants and things, so people haven’t been focusing on it very much.”

So is it time for a rest? She describes herself as living a “gypsy lifestyle” with home in New York “this month” before four-month stints in both Calgary and Atlanta, even though she misses friends and family “desperately” and longs for a chance to catch up.

We keep coming back to that work ethic though, and if Christina gets the chance to take on her dream job, she could be back in the UK doing what we do best – period drama.

“It is feeling like it is a very rounded year,” she says. “I don’t want to be greedy. I feel like I am pretty darn lucky. I would love to do some wonderful mid-1800s torrid love affair drama where I have my corset ripped off. That’s your speciality, right?”

All episodes of Tin Star are available now on Sky Atlantic and TV streaming service NOW TV.