Kiernan Shipka, 25, watched Mad Men all the way through for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Sabrina star started on the wildly popular AMC show when she was six years old and watching it now through the eyes of an adult was eye-opening.
‘They were so protective over me and my kind of innocence and not exposing me to stuff that, you know, was sensitive or more adult,’ she explained to Jesse Tyler Ferguson on his Dinner’s On Me podcast.
Still, even as a very young child, Kiernan ‘had context’ for scenes like the one where she walks in to her father Don Draper (Jon Hamm) having sex with a neighbor.
‘I always knew what I was reacting to. Like, I always knew what I was walking in on,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t have to see it over and over again.’
Kiernan Shipka , 25, watched Mad Men all the way through for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seen here in London in 2024
And yet, she admits she was precocious and probably acted too cool for school around the actors and crew.
‘I think at a certain point, I was like, “Guys, I know what this is. Like, I’m good. I’m fine,”‘ Shipka added.
‘But I really, like, admire and respect the way that they handled it. But I do think in my head, I was probably like, “I’m mature. I’m an adult. I know what’s going on here. Like, it’s fine, guys.'”
Prior to the pandemic lockdowns, she’d only seen certain episodes that were played at the season premiere screenings.
‘I was watching [Sally] go through stuff that at the time [of filming] I was feeling in a really natural way,’ she explained. ‘But now as sort of an adult, I can psychoanalyze and go, “Oh, no, she was grieving there and acting out.”
‘And at the time, I think I understood her as much as she understood herself. And as I get older, I kind of understand her the way that I hope she, you know, would understand herself one day with therapy.
Kiernan went on to say watching her play Sally was sort of inextricable from her own, off-screen childhood.
‘And there’s something really wild about seeing that because it was like, it wasn’t that I didn’t know what was going on, but I didn’t know what was going on the way that we don’t know what’s going on with us until later too.’
The Sabrina star started on the wildly popular AMC show when she was six years old and watching it now through the eyes of an adult was eye-opening. Seen here in 2012
‘They were so protective over me and my kind of innocence and not exposing me to stuff that, you know, was sensitive or more adult,’ she said. Seen here in 2024
Kiernan played the oldest child of advertising executive Don Draper and his wife Betty Draper, played by January Jones 45
Still, even as a very young child, Kiernan ‘had context’ for scenes like the one where she walks in to her father Don Draper ( Jon Hamm ) having sex with a neighbor
‘I always knew what I was reacting to. Like, I always knew what I was walking in on,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t have to see it over and over again.’
And yet, she admits she was precocious and probably acted too cool for school around the actors and crew
If she got the chance to play Sally Draper again, she would jump at the chance to revisit the character as an adult in a modern-day spinoff about Sally in her later years.
‘I’m not done with Sally,’ she told Entertainment Tonight in 2022 ‘I don’t think she’d be in New York. I think she’d do L.A. … but I’m not done with her at all.’
Shipka starred on Mad Men for its entire seven season run.
She played the oldest child of advertising executive Don Draper and his wife Betty Draper, played by January Jones 45.
