Christina Hendricks’ best movies and TV shows exemplify her ability to play complex and layered characters even with brief screen time. Hendricks did not get her start in the industry as an actress, but as a model after competing for a teen magazine cover. Hendricks spent 10 years working as a model before booking jobs in music videos and commercials. She was even the hand model for the poster ofAmerican Beautybefore starting to book roles in television.
With getting her start in television, many of Hendicks’ early roles involved her appearing in single episodes of a TV series, and many of her best roles are in television, including her iconic role as Joan inMad Men. Hendricks has brought a diverse group of characters to life in these roles, from con artists to mothers to Hollywood producers.
…it is not hard to imagine she would have been asked back for more if the show had been renewed.
Fireflyis often lamented as a series canceled before its time. The sci-fi western ran for one season, with episodes often out of order, and was canceled before its final three episodes could make it to air. When released on DVD, however, the Joss Whedon series quickly earned cult classic status and received a sequel in the form of comic books, and later, a movie.
Christina Hendricks is part ofmakingFireflylegendary. She only appears in two episodes of the show, but it is not hard to imagine she would have been asked back for more if the show had been renewed. She plays a con woman who ends up “married” to Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), and the ensemble cast follows her scheming to catch her in the act of conning someone else.
Hendricks essentially gets to play three different characters in the episode as each of the personas she dons is tailored to the situation in which she finds herself. She is perfect as the episode’s antagonist and has excellent chemistry with the main cast members, which is why she easily could have become a fan-favorite recurring villain in the series if she had been given the chance.
American Womanchronicles the 11 years between when one woman’s daughter goes missing and when she is finally found. While Sienna Miller stars as the mother of the missing teenager, Hendricks appears as Miller’s older sister in a supporting role.
Hendricks’ Katherine has a contentious relationship with her younger sister, but she is always there for her, standing by her side and supporting her however she can in her grief and anger. The movie truly belongs to Sienna Miller who turns out an astonishing performance as a woman grieving the loss of her child, struggling to move on with her life, and attempting to find stability in romantic relationships that do not work out.
Hendricks as Katherine is more contained in her performance. Katherine, however, is more conservative and reserved, so Hendricks’ choice to allow Miller the space to pull the attention of the audience makes perfect sense.The duo are fantastic together.
While audiences might have had mixed feelings aboutEgg, it is Hendricks’ only project to get a perfect 100% from Rotten Tomatoes critics.
Eggfollows a woman and her art school rival as they meet back up when they are both on the verge of motherhood. While one of them is eight months pregnant, the other is employing the use of a surrogate. Egg aims to explore what motherhood means, how women view it, and just why women choose (or do not choose) to become mothers.
Eggis unabashedly a comedy, taking a serious subject and finding all of the humor in it.Hendricks plays the woman who is eight months pregnant, and she and her former rival reignite old issues when they both approach motherhood very differently.It’s a hilarious take on the way parents and friends, and particularly women, can clash, and Hendricks is well-matched with Alysia Reiner and Anna Camp as the other women.
The Buccaneersis what audiences get when theBridgertonstyle is combined with American debutantes. The period drama series sees a group of young women from America travel to England in search of matches after their friend marries an Englishman. What they find is that they clash with the strict requirements of society.
The Buccaneersis a deliciously soapyseries in the vein ofReign, but with more of aBridgertonspin. It does not claim to be historically accurate, but it does take modern sensibilities and feminist attitudes and place them in the storylines involving the young women trying to find security for themselves in a male-dominated society.
Hendricks appears in the series as the mother of two of the girls. Her storyline revolves around her unhappiness in her own marriage and her desire to affirm to one of her daughters that, despite her not being her birth mother, she is still her mother. The illegitimacy of the parentage becomes a main storyline in the first season and Hendricks plays it mostly restrained.
The Buccaneerspromises to be an exciting series for Hendricks as she does not have to commit to the full seasons (she only appears in four episodes of the first season), but she still gets to take part in some of the meatier storylines.
The Buccaneers Season 2: Release Date, Cast, Story, Trailer & Everything We Know
Apple TV’s adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic unfinished novel The Buccaneers is already impressing viewers, and here are details about season 2.
Driveis a story of a man who repairs cars, works as a stunt driver in Hollywood, and moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. When he connects with his new neighbor and her son, he agrees to help her heavily in debt husband after he is released from prison. What should be a simple job, of course, goes sideways, and puts everyone in danger.
Christina Hendricks does not have a huge role inDrive.She plays one of the members of the robbery crew. Blanche does not last very long in the movie, but she does make an impression.She gets to go toe-to-toe with Ryan Gosling’s Driver after the two characters end up hiding out together. Their scene is fun to watch because, despite the audience knowing that Blanche is confessing to betraying the members of the team, Hendricks has the perfect amount of charisma to make the audience want her to stick around.
Three years later, Hendricks would star in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut,Lost River.
Hendricks does not have a ton of voice over work in her career, but she has appeared in a few animated series in recent years that are aimed at adults.Toy Story 4is one of the few animated projects she has done that are aimed at kids.
Toy Story 4sees the main cast of toys from the previous three movies banding together to save Forky, the newest addition to their ranks who was made at school out of a plastic fork. While the existence of Forky gives some of the toys an existential crisis, it also leads to a big adventure for them.
Hendricks gives voice to a baby doll, and the main antagonist of the movie. She is after Woody, hoping to find true love.Some of the aspects of the movie, and Hendricks’ performance, are a little dark, but that’s part of what has madetheToy Storyfranchiseso enduring.The movies appeal to kids while still dealing with arcs that make adults appreciate the story.
4Small Town, Big Story (2025)
Christina Hendricks As Wendy Patterson
Small Town, Big Storyis one of the more recent additions to Hendricks’ acting portfolio. It proves that she has a great eye for interesting television projects as Hendricks is not only one of the stars, but also an executive producer.
The series sees a Hollywood production team descend on an Irish town. The aim is to shine a light on a town secret that producer Wendy Patterson has been keeping to herself for years: the town is home to extraterrestrial visits that she has witnessed.
The movie provides a meta take on modern storytelling and filmmaking.Chris O’Dowd, who wrote and produced the series, also appears as an actor. The Irish actor, who has been working in Hollywood, even got to film some of the show in his hometown in Ireland, so the series definitely allowed him for some metatextual moments about his own acting journey.
Hendricks plays off the rest of the cast beautifully and seems to have no problem allowing the story to make fun of the nature of entertainment.
Hap And Leonard is inspired by the novels by Joe R. Lansdale. Each season of the show is inspired by a different book in the series. The series follows the titular pair of amateur investigators whose lives intersect after coming up in very different backgrounds. Their aim is to find a lost treasure in the Deep South.
Though Hendricks only appears in the first season of the show, her presence is actually instrumental for the story.She plays Hap’s ex-wife Trudy, the very person who presents the investigators with the possibility of hunting down the treasure.
Trudy is a fun character for Hendricks. There are shades of herFireflyandDrivecharacters here as she often uses her “feminine wiles” to get her way.She has no problem seducing those around her to get what she wants.
…more layered than she initially appears.
Good Girlsis a crime dramedy that was canceled too soon. The series follows three suburban wives and mothers (Hendricks, Retta, and Mae Whitman) as they become embroiled in a criminal empire. The three women have all been hit with financial hardships, so they team up to rob a local grocery store. When they do, they catch the attention of a local crime boss who has been using the store as a front for his own money laundering scheme. The women have to do increasingly dangerous tasks to keep themselves and their families safe.
Hendricks’s Beth is a woman dissatisfied with her life. She married her high school sweetheart, who went on to cheat on her and squander their money. The robbery is her effort to fix the mistakes of her past with a quick solve. It complicates her life, but as Beth finds, also makes it more exciting asBeth rises to become a criminal kingpin.
Beth is the character who really begins to enjoy living a life associated with a criminal organization. While she might seem like a typical suburban woman at first, Hendricks plays her as a woman who enjoys life on the edge.Every time she ends up in danger, she thrives. Hendricks plays her as someone calculating, someone who learns from the easy mistakes she makes at the start of the series, making her more layered than she initially appears.
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Mad Menis one of the most successful cable dramas of the 21st century. The series was critically lauded, commercially successful, and became a pop culture phenomenon.It’s easily Hendricks’ breakout projectas most of her roles prior toMad Menwere one-off television episodes and smaller movie roles.
Mad Menfollows the goings-on at an advertising agency in the 1960s. It follows the characters who work there from the office to their homes and examines their relationships with their families, friends, and coworkers. The show provides a frank look at sexism in the workplace and how relationships can shift as a result.
Christina Hendricks earned six Emmy nominations for her role inMad Men.
Hendricks’ Joan is one of the best charactersand the embodiment of women finding their way in the man’s world of the 1960s. Despite being independent and confident and a successful office manager in the advertising world, her goal is still to find a husband, marry well, and support him as he becomes successful. Of course, she is also supportive of other women striving for their own successful careers, soshe makes for an interesting dichotomy and one of the most complex characters in the series as she grows to follow her own career path.
