Christina Hendricks

Christina Rene Hendricks (born May 3, 1975) is an American actress and former model. With an extensive career on screen and stage, she has received various accolades, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards and two Critics' Choice Awards, as well as nominations for six Primetime Emmy Awards. She is known for her role as Joan Holloway on the critically acclaimed AMC period drama series Mad Men (2007–2015). In 2010, a poll of female readers taken by Esquire magazine named her "the sexiest woman in the world". She was also voted "Best Looking Woman in America".

Born to an American mother and English father in Knoxville, Tennessee, Hendricks was raised in Portland, Oregon, and Twin Falls, Idaho, where she became active in local theater. After completing high school in Virginia, she moved to New York City to pursue a modelling career, following her entry into a Seventeen cover contest. She continued to work internationally as a model for over a decade before transitioning into acting.

Hendricks had recurring roles on television series such as Beggars and Choosers (2001–2002) and Kevin Hill (2004–2005), before being cast as Joan Holloway on AMC's Mad Men in 2007, where she remained a regular cast member until the series' conclusion in 2015. She later starred on series such as Another Period (2015–2016), Hap and Leonard (2016), Tin Star (2017–2019), and NBC's Good Girls (2018–2021). Her film credits include Drive (2011), I Don't Know How She Does It (2011), Ginger & Rosa (2012), God's Pocket (2014), Lost River (2014), The Neon Demon (2016), Bad Santa 2 (2016), Fist Fight (2017), The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018), and Toy Story 4 (2019).

Hendricks was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, the second child of American mother Jackie Sue Hendricks (née Raymond), a psychologist, and English father Robert Hendricks, a Forest Service employee originally from Birmingham. Through her father, she has dual British and American citizenship. She has one older brother. Her family relocated frequently due to her father's Forest Service job—first to Georgia when she was two months old, then to Portland, Oregon, where she attended elementary school.

When Hendricks was nine years old, the family moved from Portland to Twin Falls, Idaho, where she completed elementary and middle school. She described her family as "outdoorsy", relating that they frequently went on camping trips in the Pacific Northwest. Her mother encouraged her and her brother to join a local theater group in Twin Falls to make friends, and Hendricks appeared in a production there of Grease. She recalled, "I had all these amazing friends through the theatre company. And it was a community that really respected theatre. The kids would put on a play and the entire town would show. And you were cool if you were an actor." A natural blonde, Hendricks began coloring her hair red at age 10, inspired by the book Anne of Green Gables.

When Hendricks was a teenager, her father's job required the family to move near Washington, D.C. They settled in Fairfax, Virginia. She described the move from Idaho to Virginia as "traumatic" for her, and she was frequently bullied while attending Fairfax High School. Hendricks described herself as an "outcast" and a "goth" and found companionship in the school's drama department, where she appeared in plays. In addition to theater, she studied ballet throughout her teen years. She left Fairfax High School in her senior year and completed her studies at Northern Virginia Community College.

After high school, Hendricks worked as a receptionist and shampoo girl at a salon before entering a competition to appear on the cover of Seventeen magazine. This resulted in her signing with IMG Models, after which she moved to New York City at age 18, forgoing her pre-acceptance into Virginia Commonwealth University's drama school.

She began modeling in New York, London, and Japan between the ages of 18 and 27 before transitioning into commercials. She lived in London for around a year during this period, living with two friends who were teachers. In her early twenties, she moved with her mother and brother to Los Angeles, California. Initially, she pursued a career in the administrative sector of the music business, but was dissuaded by friends, and kept working as a model before auditioning for acting roles. She appeared in commercials for Carl's Jr. and Dr. Pepper, and starred in the music video for Everclear's "One Hit Wonder" (1997). She was the hand model in the poster for the film American Beauty.