I have women coming up to me and saying: ’I love your character! She’s so empowered. She takes control she gets what she wants.’ That’s another side of her. And I respect that in Joan. She says and does things that I would never allow myself to do.

Hendricks contrasts audience perceptions of her Mad Men character Joan Holloway with her own temperament. The quote highlights how viewers read Joan’s assertiveness—her willingness to pursue desire, status, or security—as “empowerment,” even when the character operates within restrictive gender norms. Hendricks’s admiration (“I respect that”) is paired with distance: Joan expresses impulses and makes moves the actor says she would not permit herself. The remark underscores acting as a kind of imaginative freedom, and it also points to the complexity of feminist reception: a character can be celebrated for agency while still navigating (and sometimes exploiting) a patriarchal workplace.