Christina Hendricks: ‘A corset is no trouble in comparison to 1950s underwear’

Victorian corset or mid-century bra and girdle: which is more uncomfortable to wear? Having spent “a decade in the [1950s-60s] undergarments of Mad Men”, Christina Hendricks says that being strapped into Victorian corsetry for Apple TV’s The Buccaneers was “no problem at all”.

Based on the novel that Edith Wharton left unfinished when she died in 1937, The Buccaneers tracks the stories of wealthy American women coming to Britain in search of aristocratic husbands in the 1870s. Although the soundtrack is fiercely modern, the fashion is all vintage thrills.

“Period underwear is second nature to me,” Hendricks tells me via Zoom from Ireland, where she is shooting Chris O’Dowd’s new comedy series, Small Town, Big Story. “But the Victorian bustle and the massive skirt was much more challenging to wear than the corset. You take up so much space, and you feel trapped, because if you make a sudden move you could trip. Think of all the candles around in the 19th century! Your skirt going up in flames!”

What clothing couldn’t she wait to shed after a day shooting Mad Men as advertising agency secretary Joan Harris? “The clip-on earrings,” she laughs. “I found myself instinctively removing one every time I pretended to answer a phone, which those women must have done all day at work… On, off, on, off… Pfftt!”

Joan was originally intended to remain submissive, but Hendricks’s scene-stealing charisma saw her written into an increasingly bigger role, with Joan stepping out of the shadow of the Second World War in her crimson lipstick and taking control of her own destiny.

“I miss Joan every day,” sighs Hendricks. “Only time will tell, but she might be the love of my life as far as characters go. She grew, learned, made mistakes every season… she was never one thing and I was so grateful for that.”

Hendricks was famously dropped by her agent for taking the role, because Mad Men didn’t look like a money-spinner. She had the last laugh. Still, she winces to recall the “weird scrutiny” that accompanied her role. Many column inches were devoted to Hendricks’ hourglass figure. “I think back to some of the questions I was asked that nobody would dare to ask now. Also: I answered those questions.”

Hendricks says that she still makes a little cash in residuals from Mad Men. ‘Not a lot. I’ll get $27 [£21] some days; it’s nice that people are still watching it.”

From 2018 to 2021 Hendricks also starred in NBC comedy-crime series Good Girls, so I ask if she’s ever stolen anything.

“I have several ashtrays from the set of Mad Men. But you had to be very careful because we were in the same fake office every day so you couldn’t snatch those little things until they changed the set. At the end they asked us what we wanted and I took things from Joan’s apartment. A piece of mosaic landscape art and some of her serving trays. But I think I’d be really good at any crime I put my mind to! I mean, so long as it wasn’t hurting anyone…”

Hendricks was born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1975. Her American mother was a psychologist; her English father worked for the United States Forest Service.

A natural blonde, she started dying her hair red from the age of 10 because she loved Anne of Green Gables. In her teens she found success as a model and moved to New York. She later spent a year in London for work – and gained an insight into the British anti-American snobbery that the heroines of The Buccaneers endured over a century earlier.

“I’ve never been a patriotic person,” she says. “But I found myself defending myself as an American a lot in London in 1996-7. Sort of reminding Brits: America is a really huge country; we feel really differently from state to state. We’re not all like this or like that.”

She relished her time in Cool Britannia. “I love the British sense of humour. I lean towards your music,” she says. “Suddenly here was this glamour and wit with Pulp and Blur. I had come from the world of grunge; it was a change I needed at the time. I remember going to this incredible Asian shop on Neal Street, in Covent Garden to buy those platform velvet flip flops. I lived in those!”

At the time Hendricks was among many women who believed the struggle for women’s rights had been won. “It was like: ‘We’ve done it!’” She laughs, then rolls her eyes. “Of course, we were nowhere near done, but every decade we probably get a little bit better.”

Now 48 and working with a cast 20 years younger than her on The Buccaneers – she plays the anxious mother of two debutantes – Hendricks has noticed that “this younger generation really do think differently to us. When I was their age I was told I was so lucky to be there. We all were. So we forgot the value of what we were contributing, what we had brought to the table. We just didn’t feel we deserved things or that we were allowed to ask for things… not even basic creature comforts. We got told to be quiet, be likeable and not complain, not ruffle feathers. It’s how we were raised.” She shrugs. “So it has been so interesting working with this younger generation of actors and actresses because they really do think differently. They really don’t tolerate that.”

Hendricks – who divorced her first husband of 10 years, the actor Geoffrey Arend, in 2019 and became engaged to cinematographer George Bianchini earlier this year – famously caused a stir when she told journalists she had no desire to become a mother. But many women who felt the same expressed huge gratitude to her for articulating a choice for which they’d felt unfairly judged.

Her role as a mother in The Buccaneers, however, was emotional. “The first scene we shot was of all the girls coming down the staircase in their beautiful white gowns,” says Hendricks. “Watching my characters’ daughters come down the steps, I literally choked up and lost my breath. My character has put her whole life into educating and polishing her daughters. She has brought them across the ocean to find husbands. The stakes are ridiculously high: life and death. So you have to play things we would giggle about today as hugely important…”

Reflecting on her brilliant and varied career, Hendricks realises that for many years she “never looked at the way I grew up, the things I was accustomed to and the things I expected as a woman”. Only since entering her 40s has she begun to reassess her professional and personal experiences as a woman.

“It has taken me that long to realise: ‘That wasn’t right at all. Oh my God, I’ve been conditioned in such a way that I just take that as how things should be’.” She exhales, carefully. “It’s only now that I’m coming out of my fairytale fog and realising: wait a minute, I have trauma from dealing with these things my entire life. I’m still trying to fight for equal treatment, being heard, being taken seriously. I fight for these things on a daily basis and it can be exhausting. So… I love the conversation. I love that we’re still working hard.”

The final episode of ‘The Buccaneers’ is available on Apple TV+ from today