With the second half of Mad Men's final season having started this week, The Hollywood Reporter have this great oral history of the show.
Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway) I was up for another pilot, and I chose Mad Men. The [agency I was with] was like, "It's on AMC, it's a period piece, it's never going to go. Are you crazy? You're not going to make money for us …" I thought it was a little impatient of them. So I moved on.