Maggie Siff

Maggie: (on transitioning from a large public high school in Bronx to Bryn Mawr College) I felt like I was walking into a whole different world. It took me a while to acclimate, but I'm so glad that's what I did with my education.

Maggie: (on deciding to be part of "Mad Men") Really, when I read the script initially and read the pilot, I thought it was so unique and brilliant. It's such a detailed look at a specific moment in our cultural history. I just thought it was so smart and obsessively detailed that it was an incredible find as a character.

Maggie: (on how she felt about rave reviews on the show "Mad Men") It's very gratifying because we made the pilot so long ago and immediately when I read the script, then when I saw the pilot, I was like, 'This is a brilliant show'. I really felt that. I really felt strongly about it. It's like, 'Oh well, we'll see if people watch it. We'll see if people like it.' And then to feel so much incredible attention paid to it and a recognition from the press that it's something special, it's very gratifying.

Maggie: (on kissing Jon Hamm in her favorite scene in "Mad Men"'s season one) [Laughs]The worst! Let me tell you! No, I loved working with Jonand we had an extraordinary evening that night because it went on and on forever, we were shooting out there until three in the morning, and at the very end during his close-up these helicopters started circling and we had to call it a night. And it was so devastating because it was so intense.

Maggie: (comparing her "Mad Men" character to being a woman of Bryn Mawr where she graduated from) Rachel is intelligent and thoughtful, very direct - a truth-teller - and also very in touch with her sexuality. She is a powerful, attractive woman who is articulate in defending her right to be that. It's hard to find a female role that has all of those characteristics. In a lot of ways, she really exemplifies what I think of as a Bryn Mawr woman.

Maggie: I consider it my job as an actor to find a way to love all the characters I play, even those who are unattractive and hard to love.

Maggie: (on having worked in Philadelphia) It's a great theater town. There's so much creativity there, and it was a wonderful place to get a lot of work done.

Maggie: (on her character in "Mad Men"; Matt is Matthew Weiner, writer of the show) It was pretty interesting. One of the things that I really love about the character and love about the way Matt wrote her is that she really perceives and is able to process all the sleights that she has gotten along the way in her life.

Maggie: Being an East Coast girl, the flora, the fauna and the vegetation of California is constantly mesmerizing to me. I live in a house where I have a big vegetable garden and I can't get over the fact that I can walk outside, pick a fig off a tree and eat it.