Christina Hendricks

Christina Hendricks (born 3 May 1975) is an American actress and producer best known for portraying Joan Holloway Harris in Mad Men (2007–2015), Beth Boland in Good Girls (2018–2021) and Mrs St. George in The Buccaneers (2023–). Born Christina Rene Hendricks in Knoxville, Tennessee, she is the daughter of Robert Hendricks, an English-born employee of the United States Forest Service, and Jackie Sue Raymond, an American psychologist. Her father came from Birmingham, England, and Hendricks holds both American and British citizenship. She has an older brother, and her father’s work resulted in the family moving frequently during her childhood.

Shortly after her birth, the family relocated to Georgia before eventually settling in Portland, Oregon. Hendricks spent part of her early childhood in the Pacific Northwest, where the family frequently went camping and explored the surrounding forests. When she was nine, they moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, a small city near the Snake River Canyon. She attended elementary and middle school there and became involved in a local children’s theatre company after her mother encouraged her to audition. Among her early stage appearances was a production of Grease. Hendricks later remembered Twin Falls as a community where theatre was unusually popular among young people, and the experience helped establish her interest in acting.

At thirteen, Hendricks moved with her family to Fairfax, Virginia, following her father’s transfer to the Forest Service headquarters near Washington, D.C. She attended Fairfax High School, where she became involved in the drama department and appeared in productions including All My Sons and Blithe Spirit. The move from Idaho proved difficult, and she found the school environment less welcoming than the theatre community she had left behind. She developed an interest in alternative music and gothic fashion while continuing to perform. She eventually left Fairfax High School during her final year and completed her education through Northern Virginia Community College.

At eighteen, Hendricks entered a modelling competition organised by Seventeen magazine and subsequently signed with a modelling agency. She moved to New York City, where she began working professionally before receiving assignments overseas. Her modelling career took her to Japan and England, and she spent approximately a year living in a flat near Holloway Road in north London. Her father’s British background gave her a personal connection to the country, and she later spoke about feeling comfortable living in London. During her twenties, she relocated to Los Angeles with her mother, initially continuing her modelling career before beginning acting classes and auditioning for television roles.

Her early screen appearances included the television anthology series Undressed (1999) and the science fiction series Angel (1999–2004), in which she appeared as a barmaid in the episode “The Prodigal”. These productions were filmed primarily in the Los Angeles area, where Hendricks was beginning to establish herself as an actress. She subsequently appeared in ER (1994–2009), Firefly (2002–2003) and the legal drama Kevin Hill (2004–2005). In Firefly, she portrayed the con artist Saffron in two episodes, “Our Mrs. Reynolds” and “Trash”. The space western was produced at Twentieth Century Fox Studios in Century City, Los Angeles, with additional exterior filming around Southern California.

In Kevin Hill, Hendricks played Nicolette Raye, a colleague of the title character portrayed by Taye Diggs. Although the legal drama takes place in New York City, production was based primarily in Toronto, Ontario, where Canadian streets and office buildings represented Manhattan. The series followed a familiar pattern among American television productions, using Canadian filming facilities to recreate an American city.

Hendricks achieved international recognition when she was cast as Joan Holloway in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men (2007–2015). Set primarily in Manhattan during the 1960s, the series follows the employees of the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency. The pilot episode was filmed in New York City, including at Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens, and several actual Manhattan locations. However, subsequent episodes were produced mainly at Los Angeles Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles, where elaborate sets recreated the offices and interiors of the advertising industry during the period.

The production also used numerous real buildings around Los Angeles to represent 1960s New York. The Draper family’s suburban home in Ossining, New York, was represented by a house on Arden Road in Pasadena, while the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles appeared in the series. Other locations included Canter’s Delicatessen, the former Cole’s restaurant and the Cicada Club inside the historic James Oviatt Building. These surviving establishments and their period interiors helped recreate the atmosphere of mid-twentieth-century Manhattan without filming there. Hendricks received six Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her portrayal of Joan, whose career develops from office manager to partner and eventually an independent businesswoman.

During the Mad Men years, Hendricks appeared in Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime thriller Drive (2011), starring Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who works as a getaway driver. Unlike Mad Men, the film used the actual streets of Los Angeles as its setting. Hendricks played Blanche, a woman involved in a robbery that leads to a violent confrontation. The meeting between Blanche and the Driver takes place in MacArthur Park, near downtown Los Angeles, while the robbery was filmed at the Santa Clarita Elks Lodge on Sierra Highway. The Pink Motel on San Fernando Road in Sun Valley provided the motel setting where Blanche and the Driver hide following the robbery.

Other Drive locations included the former Park Plaza Hotel overlooking MacArthur Park, used for portions of the apartment building interiors, and the original Sixth Street Viaduct over the Los Angeles River, which appears during the opening getaway sequence. Additional filming took place around Echo Park, Koreatown and the San Fernando Valley. The production relied heavily on nighttime photography of actual streets, bridges and commercial buildings, preserving much of the contemporary city rather than disguising it as another location.

Hendricks subsequently appeared as Natalie, the mother of Elle Fanning’s character, in Sally Potter’s Ginger & Rosa (2012). The drama takes place in London during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and was filmed across London and the southeastern coast of England. Several coastal sequences were shot in Kent, particularly around Dungeness, Lydd-on-Sea and Lade Beach. The production also used the former RAF Denge acoustic mirrors, enormous concrete sound-detection structures built before the widespread adoption of radar. Additional filming took place around the Isle of Sheppey, where the bleak shoreline and industrial landscape helped recreate the atmosphere of early 1960s Britain.

A more unusual film production followed with Lost River (2014), the directorial debut of Ryan Gosling. Hendricks starred as Billy, a single mother struggling to retain her home in a declining American city. The film was shot extensively in Detroit, Michigan, using abandoned buildings and neglected urban landscapes as part of its setting. The former Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, a large public housing complex undergoing demolition, provided several exterior locations. The abandoned Eastown Theatre on Harper Avenue was used for a sequence in which Billy’s son Bones searches the building for valuable scrap metal.

One of the most distinctive Lost River locations was the Detroit Masonic Temple, where a side entrance was transformed into the doorway of a macabre nightclub operated by Dave, played by Ben Mendelsohn. The production constructed an elaborate entrance around the existing building, while other filming took place around Belle Isle and the MacArthur Bridge over the Detroit River. The film’s locations reflected the physical transformation of Detroit during the years following the city’s industrial decline.

Hendricks next appeared in Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon (2016), playing modelling agent Roberta Hoffman in a psychological horror film set in the Los Angeles fashion industry. The production filmed around Los Angeles and Pasadena, using locations including the Canfield-Moreno Estate in Silver Lake, a historic property whose gardens and swimming pool appear in the film. The Pasada Motel on East Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena served as the residence of aspiring model Jesse, played by Elle Fanning. Other locations included the Brite Spot diner in Echo Park, Hollywood Boulevard and Musso & Frank Grill, the historic Hollywood restaurant. The film returned Hendricks to the city where she had begun her professional acting career, this time portraying someone working in the modelling industry she had previously experienced herself.

Another 2016 production took her to Montreal, Quebec, for Bad Santa 2, in which she played Diane Hastings opposite Billy Bob Thornton. Although the comedy takes place in Chicago, much of the film was shot in Montreal and surrounding communities. Filming took place around downtown Montreal, the Griffintown neighbourhood and the area surrounding the Bell Centre. Hendricks was photographed during production outside the Ukrainian National Federation building at the junction of Fairmount Avenue and Hutchison Street in Mile End. The Canadian city therefore provided many of the urban locations for a story set in Illinois.

Hendricks returned to Britain for the Agatha Christie adaptation Crooked House (2017), in which she played Brenda Leonides, the young widow of a wealthy businessman whose family becomes involved in a murder investigation. The story takes place in postwar England, centred on the fictional country estate Three Gables. Rather than using a single property, the filmmakers combined several historic English houses to create the estate.

Minley Manor in Hampshire provided the principal exterior of Three Gables, while interior scenes were filmed at Tyntesfield, a Victorian Gothic Revival mansion near Bristol, and at West Wycombe House in Buckinghamshire. Other filming locations included Hughenden Manor, Dyrham Park and Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire. Additional scenes were shot in London, including around Hoxton Square, which was used to recreate the atmosphere of Soho during the 1950s. The film is an example of how several architecturally different historic buildings can be presented as one fictional residence.

Her television career also took her to western Canada when she joined the crime drama Tin Star (2017–2020), starring Tim Roth. Hendricks portrayed Elizabeth Bradshaw, a public relations executive working for the fictional North Stream Oil company. The series takes place in Little Big Bear, a fictional community near the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and was filmed primarily in southern Alberta. The town of High River, south of Calgary, supplied much of the main street and commercial district, while Waterton, near the American border, provided the dramatic mountain scenery.

The geographical illusion in Tin Star involved an unusual combination of practical filming and digital manipulation. High River had the buildings and infrastructure needed for the fictional town but lacked the towering mountain backdrop required by the story. The production therefore photographed the landscape around Waterton and digitally combined it with footage of High River, making the two communities appear to occupy the same valley. Additional filming took place around Calgary, including several rural properties and roads in the surrounding foothills.

Hendricks returned to the United States for the NBC crime comedy-drama Good Girls (2018–2021), playing suburban mother Beth Boland alongside Retta and Mae Whitman. The series follows three women who become involved in criminal activities after struggling with financial problems. Although the story takes place in the Detroit metropolitan area, the first season was filmed primarily around Atlanta, Georgia. Production was based at Third Rail Studios in Doraville, a suburb northeast of Atlanta, with additional exterior locations around the metropolitan area.

For the second season, Good Girls moved production to Los Angeles, where the remaining seasons were filmed. Residential streets, commercial buildings and purpose-built sets in Southern California continued to represent suburban Detroit. The fictional Fine & Frugal supermarket, which becomes central to the women’s criminal activities, was recreated for production rather than filmed entirely inside an existing Detroit supermarket. The series therefore maintained a consistent Michigan setting while being produced in two different regions of the United States.

During this period, Hendricks also appeared in the horror sequel The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018), playing Cindy, a mother travelling with her family to a largely deserted holiday trailer park. The film was shot in northern Kentucky and around Cincinnati, Ohio, with locations including Covington, Burlington and Kincaid Lake State Park near Falmouth. The fictional Gatlin Lake Getaway trailer park was constructed on vacant residential plots along Brandywine Drive in Burlington, close to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.

The trailer park’s office, playground and outdoor swimming pool were filmed at Kincaid Lake State Park. The production also used Fillmore’s Dairy Hut in Florence, Kentucky, and several local roads and bridges. Many of the mobile homes were temporarily placed on the Burlington site for filming, creating an isolated holiday community out of a largely empty residential development.

In 2019, Hendricks provided the voice of Gabby Gabby, a vintage talking doll in Pixar’s animated feature Toy Story 4. The character spends much of the film inside the fictional Second Chance Antique Store, where Woody and Forky encounter her while searching for Bo Peep. The film was produced by Pixar Animation Studios in Emeryville, California, and did not require conventional location filming. The antique store, its displays and the surrounding town were created digitally.

Hendricks also appeared in The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2022), a drama adapted from Gabrielle Zevin’s novel about a widowed bookstore owner living on a fictional island off the coast of Massachusetts. The production filmed extensively on Cape Cod, using locations around Hyannis and Yarmouth Port. The fictional Island Books bookstore was represented by a property in Yarmouth Port, while downtown Hyannis provided additional street scenes. The production used actual New England commercial buildings and coastal surroundings to create the atmosphere of the fictional island community.

A significant international role followed in The Buccaneers (2023–), an Apple TV+ period drama inspired by Edith Wharton’s unfinished novel. Hendricks plays Mrs St. George, the mother of two wealthy young American women who travel to England in search of aristocratic husbands during the 1870s. Although the story moves between New York and London, the first season was filmed predominantly in Scotland, with production based at Pyramids Studios in West Lothian.

Several Scottish country houses were used to portray the fictional English estates. Gosford House near Longniddry in East Lothian represented the Closson family mansion in New York, while Cochrane Street in Glasgow supplied the surrounding street scenes. Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast represented the seaward exterior of the Duke of Tintagel’s castle, with additional interiors filmed at Hopetoun House near Edinburgh. Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway provided further parts of the same fictional property.

Other Buccaneers locations included Newhailes House in Musselburgh, whose Palladian interiors appeared as part of the Brightlingsea residence, and the historic Glasgow City Chambers, used for a formal debutante ball. The University of Glasgow’s cloisters provided another elaborate ballroom setting, while Seacliff Beach near North Berwick was used for coastal scenes. For the second season, released in 2025, filming returned to Scotland and incorporated locations including Thirlestane Castle near Lauder, streets around Edinburgh’s New Town and the coastline at St Abb’s Head. The production also travelled to Rovinj in Croatia, which represented a fictional Italian coastal community.

Another international television project brought Hendricks to Ireland for Small Town, Big Story (2025), created by Chris O’Dowd. She played Wendy Patterson, a successful Hollywood producer who returns to her fictional Irish hometown with an American film production. The six-part comedy-drama was shot on location around Boyle in County Roscommon and in County Wicklow. The town of Boyle, where O’Dowd spent much of his childhood, provided much of the setting for the fictional community of Drumbán. Hendricks also served as an executive producer on the series. The production was particularly connected to its actual filming region, drawing on small-town streets, traditional buildings and the surrounding Irish countryside.

Outside acting, Hendricks has developed a strong interest in historic houses and interior design. In 2021, she purchased a Craftsman-style house built in 1908 in Los Angeles and began an extensive renovation. Working with professional organiser and designer Linda Koopersmith, she restored surviving architectural features while introducing new bathrooms, storage areas and modern facilities. The project retained traditional built-in cabinetry and other features associated with the American Arts and Crafts movement. Hendricks also selected colourful wallpaper, antique furniture and decorative elements inspired by Art Nouveau and Art Deco design. The house became an investment property as well as an opportunity to explore her interest in restoration.

Her interest in older buildings has also extended to a home in upstate New York, where she and her husband have undertaken further renovation work. Hendricks has discussed her enjoyment of combining antiques and period architectural details with modern furnishings, particularly in houses surrounded by woodland and rural landscapes. By 2025, she was dividing her time between properties in New York State and Los Angeles, alongside extended periods working in Ireland and Scotland.

Hendricks married actor Geoffrey Arend in October 2009, and the couple divorced in 2019. She subsequently began a relationship with cinematographer George Bianchini, whom she met through her work on Good Girls. They married on 20 April 2024 at Napoleon House, a historic restaurant and bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans, Louisiana. The building dates from the early nineteenth century and acquired its name from a plan to provide refuge for Napoleon Bonaparte following his exile. The wedding ceremony was officiated by Shirley Manson, the Scottish singer best known as the vocalist of Garbage.

The wedding celebrations also incorporated several other historic New Orleans locations. A reception was held at Soniat House, a boutique hotel occupying restored nineteenth-century Creole townhouses on Chartres Street, while guests participated in a ghost tour of the French Quarter. The couple chose New Orleans because of their shared affection for the city, which had become an important meeting place during their long-distance relationship.

Hendricks’ personal and professional history spans several distinct geographical regions, from her childhood in the Pacific Northwest and the American South to modelling work in London and Japan, television production in California and Canada, and more recent filming in Scotland and Ireland. Her career also illustrates how frequently screen geography differs from reality, with Los Angeles representing New York in Mad Men, Georgia and California representing Detroit in Good Girls, and Scottish castles standing in for English aristocratic estates in The Buccaneers.

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