Teyonah Parris Revisits Working on Mad Men: “I Always Felt Like I Was Holding My Breath”

At this point, Teyonah Parris is likely best known for her involvement in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there are a slew of other must-know titles on her resume, many of which we got to cover on an upcoming episode of Collider Ladies Night. Yes, we did focus a good deal on WandaVision and touched on Monica Rambeau’s future in the MCU, but we also looked back on Parris’ past experiences like working opposite Reese Witherspoon on How Do You Know, what it was like leading her first film with Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq, and also her experience scoring her very first recurring role on a popular TV series with Mad Men. The thing is though, Parris wasn’t even aware she had a recurring role at the time.

Parris played Dawn Chambers on the red hot AMC series, a character first introduced in Season 5 of the show. When Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) place an ad while scrambling to present Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as an equal opportunity employer, they unexpectedly wind up with dozens of African American applicants. Ultimately, the company decides to hire one Black woman as a secretary and that woman is Dawn. Parris would go on to play Dawn in 22 episodes of the show over the course of three seasons.

Sounds like a true recurring role on a very popular show, right? Not exactly. Yes, in the end it is labeled a recurring part, but while Parris was actually working on the show, she had no idea that that was her level of involvement. Check out how she described the experience in this clip from Collider Ladies Night!

#TeyonahParris #MadMen #WandaVision

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