Mad Men cast: See the actors behind the hit period drama, then and now

Jon Hamm (Don Draper)

Jon Hamm struggled for years to book parts in Hollywood, but it paid off when he landed the role of suave ad man Don Draper, catapulting him to stardom and earning him an Emmy.

“People ask, ‘How are you like Don Draper?'” Hamm told EW in 2015. “I’m like, ‘We wear the same suit size. We go to the same hair cutter.’ That’s pretty much it. It’s a character… ‘Hey, you want a drink?’ It’s like, ‘It’s 8 in the morning, no!’ [Laughs] If I drank as much as people were giving me, I’d be dead.”

Since Don’s final moment of zen-induced inspiration, Hamm has popped up all over the comedy world, including Curb Your Enthusiasm (2020–2021) and The Last Man on Earth (2016), where he reunited with January Jones. He also played cult leader Richard Wayne Gary Wayne on Tina Fey’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015–2019). 

Meanwhile, he’s become a regular presence in movies. He showed a dangerous side in Baby Driver (2017), a stone-cold authoritative side in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), and a laidback gumshoe side in Confess, Fletch (2022). Recently, he re-teamed with Fey for the crime comedy Maggie Moore(s), directed by Mad Men costar John Slattery, as well as her musical remake of Mean Girls (2024). He’s also returned to prestige TV, joining the casts of The Morning Show (2023), Fargo (2023–2024), and Taylor Sheridan’s Landman (2024-present).

In 2015, he and actor/screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt separated after 18 years together. He later married actress Anna Osceola, who guest-starred in the Mad Men series finale, in 2023.

Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson)

Before she went toe-to-toe with Don as pioneering secretary-turned-copywriter Peggy Olson, Elisabeth Moss was best known as First Daughter Zoey Bartlet on The West Wing (1999–2006).

“I was happy that she found [happiness] in the end because I liked the statement that you can have personal happiness and work happiness. They’re not mutually exclusive,” Moss told EW in 2015 about Peggy’s triumphant fate. “I liked that. I thought it was actually kind of a very feminist statement.”

After Peggy’s last creative pitch, Moss played another trailblazer in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–present), for which she won her first Emmy. Between seasons of the dystopian drama, she starred in Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake (2013), with Holly Hunter; its sequel, Top of the Lake: China Girl (2017) with Nicole Kidman; and Shining Girls (2022). She was also nominated for a Tony for The Heidi Chronicles. 

She has been in demand on the big screen, too, starring in The Square (2015), Shirley (2020), and horror hits Us (2019) and The Invisible Man (2020).

Moss was married to actor and comedian Fred Armisen from 2009 to 2011. She announced she was pregnant with her first child in 2024.

January Jones (Betty Draper-Francis)

January Jones chain-smoked her way through seven seasons as repressed suburban housewife Betty.

Before Mad Men, Jones had supporting roles in the hit threequel American Wedding (2003), real-life football drama We Are Marshall (2006), and Cannes darling The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones.

“It was like a death,” Jones told EW in 2015 about saying goodbye to the character. “Just knowing it was the last time I was ever going to speak for her in her voice was heartbreaking. As much as people have good or bad strong feelings about Betty, I was always super attached and defensive of her.”

After Mad Men made her a household name, Jones landed a series of higher-profile film roles. She was Liam Neeson’s wife in the twisty thriller Unknown (2011), brought Marvel supervillain Emma Frost to life in X-Men: First Class (2011), and headlined the bloody revenge thriller Sweetwater (2013), alongside Ed Harris.

Jones joined the cast of The Last Man on Earth (2015–2018) before appearing in Ryan Murphy’s The Politician (2019) and the figure skating drama Spinning Out (2020). 

In 2011, she gave birth to a son, Xander.

Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper)

Kiernan Shipka made her acting debut at just 5 months old on ER. A series of small parts followed before she eventually landed the role of the eldest Draper child, Sally.

On the Dinner's on Me podcast in 2024, Shipka said that finally watching the show gave her new insight into her character: “At the time, I think I understood her as much as she understood herself. As I get older, I understand her the way that I hope she would understand herself one day with therapy.”

After Mad Men, Shipka starred in Oz Perkins’ haunting The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015), then stepped into the witchy world of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2018–2020) as the title character before reprising the teenage sorceress on Riverdale (2021–2022). Her other TV credits include Ryan Murphy’s Feud (2017) and guest appearances on The Other Two (2023) and White House Plumbers (2023). 

In two of her highest-profile roles to date, Shipka starred in the hit sequel Twisters (2024) and took on a villainous role in the Christmas actioner Red One (2024), opposite Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans. She also had a memorable appearance in Perkins’ horror hit Longlegs (2024).

Jessica Paré (Megan Draper)

Montreal native Jessica Paré previously appeared in the Josh Hartnett thriller Wicker Park (2004), the WB’s Jack & Bobby (2004–2005), and Hot Tub Time Machine (2010).

When she arrived midway through Mad Men’s run as Megan, a receptionist and the future Mrs. Draper, she captured the hearts of both Don and the audience — especially after her famed rendition of "Zou Bisou Bisou."

“I never heard ‘Zou Bisou Bisou,’” Pare admitted to EW in 2014 about filming the now-iconic song and dance. “I loved it. I think it's so of that time and that place. It's really a very French, very silly song, which was so en vogue at that point. And I loved that it was in French because I like using that part of my brain.”

After leaving Don, and the fictional soap To Have and to Hold, behind, Paré was a series regular on the action drama SEAL Team (2017–2024) with David Boreanaz. She starred alongside Kathleen Turner in the family comedy Another Kind of Wedding (2017), had a supporting role in Best Picture-nominated Brooklyn (2015), and voiced a killer debt collector in The Simpsons (2021). 

In 2019, she announced on Instagram that after “16 years of cohabitation” between the U.S. and Canada, she was officially an American citizen. Paré has a son, Blues Anthony, with musician John Kastner.

John Slattery (Roger Sterling)

Before donning the tailored suits of wealthy account executive Roger Sterling, John Slattery was a long-time character actor. 

Viewers might recognize him from arcs on Sex and the City (2000), Judging Amy (1999–2000), and Desperate Housewives (2007), or from film roles in Traffic (2000) and Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers (2006). MCU fans know him as Iron Man’s dad, Howard Stark, in four movies beginning with Iron Man 2 (2010).

“It was the best," Slattery told EW in 2020 about his time on Mad Men. "It’s hard to top that one as far… as everything about it. The writing, the cast. It was the experience of a lifetime."

After sipping his last martini at Sterling Cooper, he re-teamed with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner for Amazon’s The Romanoffs (2018) and earned critical acclaim for the Best Picture winner Spotlight (2015). He returned to a familiar milieu by narrating the docuseries The Real Mad Men of Advertising (2017), which chronicled the contributions of the actual men and women of the post-WWII advertising world. 

Since the dissolution of their ad agency, he and Hamm have collaborated frequently, including for Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted (2024), in which the two parody their Mad Men personas.

Slattery has been married to Talia Balsam since 1998. The actress played his onscreen spouse, Mona, on Mad Men.

Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway-Harris)

Christina Hendricks was a working model and actress long before she sauntered into Sterling Cooper as no-nonsense secretary-turned-executive Joan. In fact, she was the hand model in the iconic poster for American Beauty (1999).

Outside of print work, she appeared on ER (2002), Cold Case (2005), and Firefly (2002–2003), and was a series regular on the short-lived Taye Diggs drama, Kevin Hill (2004–2005).

In a 2013 interview with EW, Hendricks reflected on the way Joan evolved throughout the series: “The beautiful thing about being on a show for this long is that these characters slowly start to unravel and reveal themselves… Joan became so much more. She always was, we just hadn’t seen it yet.”

While Joan made Hendricks a small-screen star, the actress gained traction on the big screen in Drive (2011), the Adrien Brody-led public school drama Detachment (2011), and the thriller Dark Places (2015), opposite Charlize Theron. She had a starring role in Slattery’s directorial debut, God’s Pocket (2014), opposite the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and played the lead in Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River (2014).

After leaving the boardroom behind, Hendricks has stayed busy with roles in Another Period (2015–2016), Hap and Leonard (2016), and Good Girls (2018–2021), while appearing in movies such as The Neon Demon (2016), The Strangers: Prey at Night (2018), and Toy Story 4 (2019). Like Slattery, she also reunited with Weiner for The Romanoffs.

She and her husband of 10 years, actor Geoffrey Arend, divorced in 2019. In 2024, she married camera operator George Bianchini.

Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell)

Vincent Kartheiser, the actor behind smarmy, ambitious ad exec Pete Campbell, was best known before Mad Men as Connor, the wayward son of vampire detective Angel on the Buffy spinoff. He made his film debut at age 14 in Untamed Heart (1993) and later appeared in Another Day in Paradise (1998) and Alpha Dog (2006).

That Pete was one of the least likable characters was not lost on Kartheiser. “I’m glad that we have a show where there’s a lot of gray area for everyone to play in. I think the audience chose who the good guys were and the bad guys were for themselves,” he told Vulture in 2015. “We just gave them… the most truthful version of each person that they could… and they chose to individually despise or adore us.”

Post-Mad Men, Kartheiser has recurred on Casual (2016), The OA (2019), and the TV remake of Das Boot (2018–2020). More recently, he played Batman villain Jonathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow, on Titans (2021).

In 2022, he filed for divorce from actress Alexis Bledel, whom he met on the set of Mad Men during season 5. The couple shares a son.

Alison Brie (Trudy Campbell)

Community star Alison Brie played Pete’s wife, prim and proper daddy’s girl Trudy. She appeared on the two series simultaneously, rocketing her into the public consciousness.

“It’s like Christmas morning every time the script arrives,” Brie told PEOPLE in 2010 about working on the show. “You unwrap the manila envelope and literally gasp. Last season, when I got the script for the finale, my friend’s sitting nearby, like, ‘What?’ I’m like, ‘I can’t tell you — but it’s really good.’”

Beyond voicing Diane on BoJack Horseman (2014–2020), Brie hopped into the ring as an actress-turned-wrestler on GLOW (2017–2019). She later starred in the films Promising Young Woman (2020) and Happiest Season (2020) before pairing with John Cena for the action-comedy Freelance (2023). 

Brie has written three films, Horse Girl (2020), Spin Me Round (2022), and Somebody I Used to Know (2023), the latter being directed by her husband, actor Dave Franco. She also starred in Franco’s directorial debut, The Rental (2020).

Robert Morse (Bertram Cooper)

Robert Morse was a celebrated performer long before he played wealthy, eccentric senior partner Bert Cooper. During his 50-year career before Mad Men, he won two Tonys and an Emmy. He notably originated the role of J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and returned for the 1967 film adaptation. 

Morse was 82 when Cooper danced his way out of Don Draper’s life. “I’ve watched the episode a couple of times, and I don’t mean to be silly, but it’s an absolute love letter from creator Matt Weiner,” Morse told EW in 2014 about his character’s final appearance. “You couldn’t ask for a nicer send off.”

The legendary actor continued to work after Mad Men, joining the cast of Impeachment: American Crime Story (2016) as journalist Dominick Dunne. He partnered with Slattery for one more Broadway turn in 2016 for a revival of The Front Page. 

In 2022, Morse died after a short illness at age 90. He had been married twice, first to Carole D'Andrea and then to Elizabeth Cosby Roberts until his death. He had five children.

Aaron Staton (Ken Cosgrove)

Aaron Staton only had a handful of credits to his name before he played account executive Ken Cosgrove, who moonlights as a fiction writer.

After being something of a whipping boy for Roger Sterling and the other bosses, Ken ultimately turned the tables and became a client, insisting he would be “hard to please.” That arc suited Staton just fine, telling EW in 2015, “What I want for Ken is… he’s a guy who always has his happiness sort of come to him, so I hope that continues to be the case. But I feel pretty satisfied for the guy!”

Thanks to Mad Men, Staton has added a long list of television roles to his résumé. He has recurred on Ray Donovan (2015–2016), Narcos: Mexico (2018), and Castle Rock (2018–2019).

Staton returned to the '60s, sans eye patch, for NatGeo’s miniseries adaptation of The Right Stuff (2020), playing the NASA astronaut first portrayed by Lance Henriksen in the original 1983 film. Most recently, he popped up in Based on a True Story (2023), starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina.

The actor has been married to Connie Fletcher since 2006.

Rich Sommer (Harry Crane)

Rich Sommer’s most memorable pre-Mad Men role was Doug, one of Anne Hathaway’s notoriously unsupportive friends in The Devil Wears Prada (2006). A year later, he found himself in Manhattan as mild-mannered accountman (and cheating husband) Harry Crane.

In a 2011 sitdown with EW, Sommer said the secretive nature of the show’s production turned many actors into de-facto fans. “We get the script the day before the table read, and we do the table read the day before we start shooting… We’re constantly like, ‘What’s going to happen?! What’s going to happen?!’ We actors talk about the show like I imagine viewers do around the water cooler. We have a little more insight, but really not that much.” 

Sommer wasn’t apart from his SCDP bosses for long after Mad Men ended; he appeared alongside Hamm and Slattery in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp just two months later. Scattered guest work followed before he reteamed with Alison Brie on GLOW, playing another philandering husband. He also starred in HBO’s Run (2020).

Sommer was a regular on In the Dark (2019–2020) and had supporting roles in Summer of 84 (2018), BlackBerry (2023), Fair Play (2023), and King Richard (2021). 

He and his wife, Virginia, have two children. 

Jared Harris (Lane Pryce)

A respected veteran of stage and screen, Jared Harris joined the show’s ensemble in season 3 as stuffy financial officer Lane Pryce. The British thespian’s credits included I Shot Andy Warhol (1996) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). He also had a recurring role on the cult favorite Fringe (2008–2012).

Harris talked to EW in 2012 about the bittersweetness of his departure from Sterling Cooper: “It’s an incredible place to work. It’s one of those Catch-22 things, the fact that [Weiner] decided to let Lane go meant that I got two seasons worth of storylines this year. But on the other hand, it really has been the best place to go and work, and I won’t be working there anymore. I’m going to miss them all.”

Always in high demand, Harris has played everyone from Ulysses S. Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln (2012) to Moriarty himself in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011). On the small screen, he starred in The Crown (2016–2017) as King George VI; the horror-tinged maritime thriller The Terror (2018); and won a BAFTA for Chernobyl (2019). He can currently be seen in Apple’s Foundation (2021–present).

Harris is the son of legendary actor Richard Harris, a.k.a. the original Dumbledore.