Sally Draper is child’s play for Shipka
Mad Men actor hasn’t watched adult drama yet
Kids don’t recognize her on the street, but adults sure do. One day, Kiernan Shipka has vowed to herself, she will watch the TV show she plays a kid in, and that adults keep talking about.
That would be Mad Men, the four-time Emmy Award-winning drama in which she plays Don Draper’s precocious, increasingly difficult 12-year-old daughter, Sally Draper. Mad Men is not the kind of television program kids Shipka’s age watch on their own — or would want to, she reasons — but their parents do.
Shipka’s parents, non-actors who ceded to their daughter’s desire to take up acting when she was just five years old, haven’t banned Mad Men, exactly, but it isn’t ideal family viewing, either.
“I definitely wasn’t allowed to watch it at the beginning, because I was only six, and I feel you have to kind of start the show from the beginning,” Shipka said. “So, when the show ends, I’m planning on kind of having my own Mad Men marathon.”
Tonight, though, she will appear, as herself, in the upstart, first-year sitcom, Don’t Trust the B.... in Apt. 23. For Shipka, kicking back and cutting loose was a blast, even if playing herself meant she didn’t get the funniest lines or most outthere physical bits.
In her own Tv-viewing “me time,” though, she would rather watch sitcoms than a heavy drama.
“I love well-written comedies, so Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory,” Shipka said. “I think both really knock it out of the park. And then I’m also kind of addicted to the Food Network channel. I can watch . . . for hours. It’s really addictive.”
Another surprise: if this acting thing doesn’t work out, Shipka says, she would like to work in the sciences one day.
By law, child actors in California must keep up with their schooling, even though Shipka says her workdays can range anywhere from six to “nine-and-a-half” hours.
“It just kind of depends how heavy your character is in the episode.” Shipka is on an independent study program, and of her daily lessons, it’s science that appeals to her the most. Not that it will come to that. “I hope I am in the position where I can just act forever, because that’s really what I love and I can’t really imagine myself doing anything else,” Shipka reasoned. “At least, not right now.”
Another surprise: Jon Hamm is really, really funny. From week to week, Don Draper may seem like a bit of a cad and a sourpuss, but that’s why they call it acting.
“They are all funny,” Shipka said. “There are so many jokes going around on the set. We always have fun during the scenes, especially in rehearsal time. Jon is really funny, surprisingly, because you think he plays such a dramatic character. But then, when he shows off his funny side, he’s hysterical.”
Her friends don’t know that much about Mad Men, but they may be more appreciative about the B.... in Apt. 23.
“They’re not really intrigued at all (by Mad Men), to be honest,” Shipka said. “They don’t even really care that I’m on the show. It’s my hobby, that’s all. They have their hobbies, some of them. They swim, they do soccer. Acting is kind of my thing.”