Q&A - January Jones (Betty Draper)
January Jones, better known as Betty Draper to Mad Men fans, talks about the changes she made in her life for Season 2 and the impact on her life of Season 1.
Q: Did you have to take horseback riding lessons for these first few episodes?
A: Yeah. I had always ridden Western before. This is the first time I ever had a chance to ride English. So I did three or four months of lessons before we started shooting, and I've really started to enjoy it....I've started to jump and everything.
Q: You probably work with children actors more than any other members of the cast. Is there a big difference?
A: Yes...Actually the little girl who plays Sally Draper is amazing: Kiernan Shipka....We're lucky that the kids that we do act with [as Bobby and Sally] are quite professional. Sometimes they're six and eight years old, so if they don't remember their lines...So do I...What am I saying? Not really, not really. It's fun. We goof around a lot.
Q: Has Mad Men made you famous?
A: Actually I don't get recognized that often 'cause I wander around town in jeans and a T-shirt and my hair in a ponytail. If I do get noticed, people will say are you Betty Draper? Oh my gosh, you look so young. Oh my gosh, you're so small. We must look so larger than life in the show. And I think I get noticed by men more than women. I don't know why. I was in Vegas with my family, and we were going to dinner; and there's this man and woman waiting to be seated. The husband said look there's Betty, there's Betty. And the wife goes oh no, no, no. That girl is much smaller. I guess the camera does add ten pounds.
January Jones does a terrific job with the part of Betty Draper. Very professional and very realistic!
I love her! She's my favorite character!
This site describes her well:
"January Jones is a revelation as Don's wife Betty (and can we just say we love the names of these characters? Betty, Don, Peggy, Roger, Trudy, Francine, Midge - they just don't make names like that anymore). Pretty and delicate, you could easily be fooled into thinking that she's just a paper doll, there only for set dressing, but she's one hell of an actress too. She appears to be descending slowly into housewife madness but, as with everything in the show, there's so much more to her than that."
http://tomandlorenzo.blogspot.com/2008/08/if-youre-not-watching-mad-men-youre.html
I love January Jones! She is so pretty and also has brains, she talks with a blunt attitude and says how she feels without biting her tongue. Reminds me of myself. Plus, she with a guy that doesn't bite his tongue either so what a good couple. So great going with keeping bueatiful ladies and handsome guys togrther, that's a hell of a team. Even with their infidelities.
This interview is too short such an exceptional actress as January Jones playing such a pivotal character in the show. The final scene in Episode 3 is a permanent record of her chops.
I have battled depression, so know she absolutely nailed the emotion of the scene while the Jack Jones tune played softly in the background. You could just watch the deep sadness overwhelm her, and I suffered her inability to control it or explain its source to Don. Superb!
I'm making sure I tell everyone I know about her (and Mad Men); please make sure her work is sumitted and recognized for every award and accolade the entertainment industry confers.
She's bold, she's beautiful, she's stylish, she's civilized--erudite even. It's such an interesting period--people still spoke considerately, but with a forthrightness seldom seen nowadays, and not since the ascendancy of primal screaming in the late '60's. Brains & Beauty--that's our Betty!
My favorite scene in my favorite episode of "Mad Men" was the one where Betty Draper fires her kid's BB gun at the next door neighbor's doves. Up until then, I'd considered "Mad Men" a quality show, but that scene showed me that, more than quality, it had AN EDGE! Betty got fired from the Coca-Cola campaign and sucked it in, reluctantly accepting her role as stay-at-home housewife and denying herself the opportunity to resume her career. Outwardly, she accepted it, but firing the BB-gun, with a cigarette hanging on her lips Bonnie Parker-style, showed us how she really felt. I was introducing friends to "Mad Men" by watching with them Season 1 episodes back-to-back on Comcast On Demand. I made sure they saw Episode 9 for what I considered the best moment in the season. I also loved the scene where her daughter ran into the kitchen with the dry cleaning bag over her head and Betty's admonition to the child was, not the choking hazard the bag presented to the child, but that Betty's dress better not be lying on the floor upstairs! Brilliant! After years of over-the-top adoration for "The Sopranos" and "The Wire," finally a show that those of us with only basic cable can adore! Best wishes to you, January Jones, and the rest of the cast.
She is clearly the brightest part of a very well made show. Her cool beauty reminds me of Grace Kelly or Lana Turner, but neither of the two of them were the actresses that January Jones is. The most shocking and provocative relationship is Betty's with the young boy she babysat, Glen, who walks in on her in the bathroom and later kisses her and later offers her consolation in a parking lot. It's a bizarre relationship and it takes a great actress to pull it off.
The reason I started watching Mad Men was because of January Jones. I'd seen her in some movies, but mainly because of Josh Groban. I'm a huge fan of his and I think we (his fans) were more upset about their breaking up than they were. She is just adorable and they were so sweet together. Her acting has improved immensely also from the earlier roles she was in. I agree that she deserves an Emmy for the insightful way she portrays Betty. I know that their schedules prevent them from being together but I keep hoping they will find each other again. I'm just a hopeless romantic. Mad Men is a great show!
Love the BB gun episode too! Shows she is not the reserved wife/mother she pretends to be for social acceptability of the times.
Liked her hair style last season better--more flat Grace Kelly like the time was then. Too poufy this season!
January Jones is beautiful and talented--great as the sheltered rich girl married to successful handsome man, etc--yet lonely and sad with her life. Very 1950's when she wore sexy outfit on Valentine's, etc.--then exasperatedly told her husband she wished he would tell her what to do.
I did not like the show of physical abuse --where she shoved him and he shoved her---was just allowed to drop and not mentioned. Definitely should have been addressed---not acceptable behavior for either.