Kiernan Shipka is only just realizing how “intense” it was to be a child actor on the acclaimed show “Mad Men.”
“I’m surprised because I wasn’t really thinking it was heavy duty at the time,” the 23-year-old actor told Page Six in a story published Saturday. “I didn’t know anything else. ... But looking back, I go, ‘Yeah, well, that was really intense.’”
Shipka was 7 years old amid the premiere of the beloved series, which made AMC a destination from 2007 to 2015. She became a teenager in front of an audience of millions while playing Sally Draper, the daughter of Jon Hamm’s Don Draper.
Shipka told Page Six that she “got really lucky as a kid” with “Mad Men.”
“Just to be trusted with the performance and not really doubted,” she said. “In turn, I just didn’t really doubt myself and I found my abilities in ways that I might not have if they were stifled. ... I’m so thankful for that.”
Fans of the TV drama will remember that Sally experienced numerous hardships — from her parents’ divorce and infidelities to her mother’s death — which Shipka helped bring to life alongside more seasoned actors like January Jones.
“I’m so proud of you,” Jones wrote to Shipka on her 20th birthday. “I feel somewhat responsible for you little one. You have become such a success in life and in this silly world we call work. I couldn’t have asked for a better on screen daughter/partner in crime.”
Shipka went on to star in Netflix’s “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” and is now appearing in “White House Plumbers,” an upcoming miniseries about the Watergate conspiracy of the 1970s that ultimately led to then-President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
Shipka portrays the daughter of E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA officer who helped plot a break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington and was later convicted for his role in the conspiracy.
The show is set to premiere May 1 on HBO.