Why hello, Mrs. Draper! Jessica Pare has dropped her chic ’60s dresses for simple lace lingerie — and at times, nothing at all. In the April issue of Esquire magazine, the Mad Men actress flaunts her svelte figure as she bares her cleavage in a swimsuit, and goes topless in a pool. Far removed from her days back in Montreal, Pare also dishes on her AMC audition, and how her life would have been much different if she didn’t become Jon Hamm’s (second) onscreen wife.
“I really struggled,” the Canadian-born actress, 33, said in the issue of trying to make it in Hollywood. “I was ready to move back to my parents’ place, ready to get a job at my friend’s bar back home and just pack it in.”
Before landing the role of secretary-turned-actress Megan Draper, Pare had wrapped Season 1 of the WB series Jack & Bobby in 2004. Like other actors, she was on to the next audition, but for her, landing a job meant a lot more than just another paycheck. It turns out, she needed an employer willing to sponsor her in order to receive a visa.
“I had nothing left to lose,” she said of Mad Men’s audition. “I went into the audition thinking, This is it. If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Nobody else has.”
Luckily for her though, she nailed it. Better yet, her originally four-episode arc turned into three seasons. Unfortunately, she also received some harsh criticism along the way. Viewers commented on her distinct teeth shortly after making her first appearance on the smash hit, but she just laughs about it now. “You can’t get a lot of sh-t stuck in these teeth,” she said in Esquire about her noticeable gap.
