Christina Hendricks Recalls ‘Very Intense’ Role on ER: ‘It Was a Really Special Experience’ (Exclusive)

Long before Christina Hendricks was a five-time Emmy nominee for her work on Mad Men, the actress was just trying to establish herself in Hollywood with appearances in TV shows like Angel, Firefly and Cold Case.

One of her earliest roles included a four-episode arc during ER’s eighth season as Joyce Westlake, a neighbor of Dr. Abby Lockhart’s (Maura Tierney) stuck in an abusive relationship. ER showrunner John Wells offered Hendricks the meaty guest-starring role as a way of testing her out on the popular NBC medical drama.

“I had done a show called The Court with him, and I did an episode of Presidio Med with him,” Hendricks exclusively tells PEOPLE. “I remember exactly where I was when I got the call that I was going to be doing four episodes [of ER], and I started crying in the car, because I was so happy. I was so happy, and I was like, ‘This is the big time.’”

While Hendricks found her character “really emotionally intense,” one of the job’s upsides was the opportunity to work closely alongside Tierney, with whom Hendricks shared many scenes.

“I think she is extraordinary and exceptional, and I just watched her every move,” the actress says. “And she was so kind to me. I remember asking her acting questions, and she would graciously answer them rather than eye-rolling, like, ‘Leave me alone, little girl.’”

“I do remember asking [Maura], ‘How do you get yourself up to this place to cry and go through this emotion?’” she continues. “‘And she goes, ‘I really believe that I’m in it. I have to sit there and believe that I’m really in it.’ And I went, ‘Okay. Okay, that’s what I’ll do.’”

For Hendricks, even now, her short time on ER remains a “really special experience” she won’t soon forget. However, 5 years later, the actress landed her breakthrough role as the clever, head-turning office manager Joan Holloway on Mad Men, which ran for seven seasons. She has kept busy in a wide range of TV and films in the years since, including 2011’s Drive alongside Ryan Gosling and NBC’s Good Girls, which ran for four seasons. (Hendricks also met her fiancé, George Bianchini, on the set of Good Girls.)

Hendricks is currently enjoying playing Mrs. St. George, the mother of two debutantes in 1870s London in the Apple TV+ adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Buccaneers — a project she appreciates just as much for its elaborate “costume world” as its original contemporary soundtrack, featuring musicians like Warpaint, Lucius and Miya Folick.

But despite a thriving acting career that has come so far since those smaller TV roles in the early 2000s, Hendricks says she never planned for all this success.

“Throughout my career, I’ve never planned or anticipated anything,” she says. “In this type of nomadic lifestyle and career, you really have to roll with it, because it’s so cyclical and tumultuous. You’ve got to kind of be rough and tumble. But working in castles in Scotland for The Buccaneers was not too shabby. I wouldn’t mind a little bit more of that!”

source: people.com