By ANGELA DAWSON

Front Row Features

HOLYWOOD—Christina Hendricks played Joan Harris on AMC’s “Mad Men” for seven seasons, rising from office manager to partner at a 1960s ad agency. She garnered six Emmy nominations, including one for her memorable supporting performance for the final season.

The shapely redhead hasn’t remained idle since the acclaimed series wrapped. She recently reunited with Nicolas Winding Refn for a starring role in the thriller “The Neon Demon,” opposite Keanu Reeves, having previously appeared in his 2011 action thriller “Drive,” starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan.

In a departure from her highly independent Joan character, she plays a skittish housewife named Patty Day in the suspense thriller “Dark Places,” based on the 2009 novel by Gillian Flynn, the author who also penned the recent bestseller “Gone Girl,” which was adapted into the box office hit last year.

“Dark Places,” directed and adapted for the screen by Gilles Paquet-Brenner (“Pretty Things,” “Sarah’s Key”), stars Oscar winner Charlize Theron as a woman who struggles with a childhood tragedy, in which she implicated her brother (Corey Stoll) for the murder of her mother and two sisters. Low on financial resources, she accepts an offer by a group of real crime story aficionados, to revisit her past. As the modern day story unfolds, what actually happened to Patty and two of her children on a remote Kansas farm in the 1980s also is revealed.

Born in Knoxville, Tenn., to a psychologist mother and a U.S. Forest Service father, Hendricks and her family moved around the U.S. during her youth thanks to her father’s job. She began modeling at 18, and got her big break as an actress with a role in the Showtime TV series “Beggars and Choosers.” Now 40, she is married to TV and theater actor Geoffrey Arend.

She also gets a chance to show her comedy chops in the irreverent Comedy Central comedy “Another Period.”

Hendricks recently spoke about her new projects and life after “Mad Men.”

Q: Congratulations on your Emmy nomination.

Hendricks: Thank you very much.

Q: This is quite a departure from Joan from “Mad Men.” Can you talk about your attraction to the role and what you found interesting about Patty? What roles are you interested in, in general?

Hendricks: I’ve been so lucky to be able to go into a hiatus and do different projects and work or different characters, and do many films during the eight years (of “Mad Men”). And when I read this script, I actually was asked to play a different role, and I just loved the whole script, and all the female characters were so strong and interesting and rich.

I had just come off two films so I was like, “Time-wise, this fits in just perfectly. I can do this and then get back to work.” And I was thrilled to go and explore this character and I got to set and everyone was just lovely and smiling. I was there doing a hair and makeup test. I was actually with a wig being plopped on my head, and they said, “Gilles and Charlize would like to see you on set.” And I thought, “Oh, they’re going to hate this wig. We can change it; it’s no problem.” And they had at the last minute lost their Patty. So they asked me if I would stay and switch roles. So I was just attracted to the script, in general, to be quite honest. And through just good fortune I ended up playing

Q: We’ve seen more female-driven dramas in the past couple of years. Why do you think audiences are demanding more movies starring women in prominent roles?

Hendricks: I think that perhaps the audience didn’t know they wanted it because it simply wasn’t there and unless you are possibly in the industry and thinking about it constantly, you go to the entertainment that is out there and provided for you. You go and see it and enjoy it. You almost didn’t recognize that you were missing what wasn’t there. It wasn’t that they didn’t want to see those characters, they didn’t have them, and once they were out there and providing that kind of material, people enjoyed it just as much as the rest. It’s just maybe our industry has been scared, you know it’s all about making your money back at the end of the day, and it’s so scary to take that next level.

Q: This is quite a departure from your eponymous role of Joan on “Mad Men.” Can you talk about your attraction to this role and what you found interesting about Patty? What roles are you interested in, in general?

Hendricks: I’ve been so lucky to be able to go into a hiatus and do different projects and work or different characters, and do many films during the eight years (of “Mad Men”). And when I read this script, I actually was asked to play a different role, and I just loved the whole script, and all the female characters were so strong and interesting and rich.

I had just come off two films so I was like, “Time-wise, this fits in just perfectly. I can do this and then get back to work.” And I was thrilled to go and explore this character and I got to set and everyone was just lovely and smiling. I was there doing a hair and makeup test. I was actually with a wig being plopped on my head, and they said, “Gilles and Charlize would like to see you on set.” And I thought, “Oh, they’re going to hate this wig. We can change it; it’s no problem.” And they had at the last minute lost their Patty. So they asked me if I would stay and switch roles. So I was just attracted to the script, in general, to be quite honest. And through just good fortune I ended up playing

Q: What are you looking to do now?

Hendricks: I just finished a sort-of pulp drama about two weeks ago and I’ve got a comedy (“Another Period”) on Comedy Central going on right now. I think I’m going to run off and do a play in the fall. I’m just getting excited about getting more opportunities and more time to figure it out.