January Kristen Jones (born January 5, 1978; age: 44) is an American actress.

She is best known for playing Betty Draper on the AMC drama series Mad Men (2007-2015).

Since 2015, she has been portraying Melissa Chartres in the comedy television series The Last Man on Earth. 

Jones is also known for her roles in the films American Wedding (2003), We Are Marshall (2006), Unknown (2011), and Seeking Justice (2011).

January Jones Bio: Early Life, Family Heritage, Name Origin

Jones was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to Karen, the manager of a Scheels sporting goods store, and Marvin Jones, a coach and gym teacher. She has two sisters named Jina and Jacey.

Jones is of Danish, German, Welsh, Czech and English descent.

She was named after January Wayne, one of the characters from Jacqueline Susann’s 1973 novel Once Is Not Enough, which was later made into a movie.

January Jones Bio: Acting Career

Jones played several supporting roles in films in the early 2000s, including in Love Actually (2003), Anger Management (2003) and Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004). She also played secondary roles in the films The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005) and We Are Marshall (2006).

In 2007, Jones landed her first major television role when she began playing 1950s housewife Betty Draper, Jon Hamm’s character’s wife, in the AMC drama series Mad Men. Jones played the role for seven seasons, and received two Golden Globe nominations as well as an Emmy nomination for her performance.

Jones then appeared in the 2009 British comedy The Boat That Rocked (re-titled Pirate Radio in North America).

In 2011, Jones starred in three films: the action thriller Unknown, in which she played the wife of Liam Neeson’s character; X-Men: First Class, in which she played supervillain Emma Frost; and the thriller Seeking Justice, in which she played a musician who is a rape victim. Nicolas Cage played her husband in Seeking Justice. 

Jones then played a main role in the 2013 western film Sweetwater opposite Ed Harris and Jason Isaacs. 

Jones’ most recent film was the 2014 war drama film Good Kill, in which she played the wife of a drone pilot portrayed by Ethan Hawke. 

Since 2015, Jones has played Melissa Chartres, a former real estate agent, in the Fox post-apocalyptic comedy series The Last Man on Earth opposite Will Forte and Kristen Schaal. 

January Jones Bio: ‘Good Kill’ Interview

In 2015, Jones sat down with uinterview for an exclusive interview about her film Good Kill. 

The drama, which co-stars Zoe Kravitz, shows (in part) the frayed marriage between an Air Force drone pilot (Hawke) and Jones’ character as the former begins to question the morality of him dropping bombs on Afghanistan from the safety of his post in the Nevada desert.

“While happy that her husband is at home now instead of away, there is very little to no communication between the two,” Jones explained to uInterview exclusively. “So my story, my character’s story, is just that struggle to gain any sort of information from him and try to make the home life a happier place.”

Jones admitted she knew very little about the drone program before landing the role.

“I was aware that there was [a drone program], but I knew very little about it and that was what was very intriguing to me about doing the project was just that I thought it was a story that needed to be told and it was going to open up a lot of conversation about it that was necessary,” Jones said. “What the movie does really well, what Andrew did really well, was just to give you information and give you the pros and the cons and not force a certain opinion down your throat. I think that by the end of the movie, you’re able to form your own opinion about it and that’s what it did for me too.”

January Jones: Boyfriends, Instagram, Son, Net Worth, Quotes

Jones has dated (or been rumored to date) several famous men throughout her career. From 1998-2001, she was in a relationship with Ashton Kutcher. Then, she dated singer Josh Groban from 2003-2006.

After this, Jones dated film producer Tommy Alastra from 2008-2009. She was also briefly linked with two of her Last Man on Earth co-stars, Forte and Jason Sudeikis, in 2015 and 2011, respectively.

In late 2017, Jones was romantically linked to The Bachelor star Nick Viall, although nothing has been officially confirmed. Jones revealed Viall contacted her on a November 2017 episode of The Late Late Show with James Corden. Jones said she is a huge fan of The Bachelor. 

Jones said in a Vanity Fair magazine interview in 2009 that she had joined the marine conservation group Oceana as a celebrity spokesperson. Her main work with the organization consisted in helping to save endangered sharks. The actress has gone swimming with sharks.

Jones has one son, Xander Dane Jones, who was born on September 13, 2011 in Santa Monica, California.

Jones is not on Twitter, but is on Instagram as @januaryjones.

Her net worth is estimated at $10 million.

Quotes:

“I feel as though my career really hit its high point when I was cast as a supporting actress in ‘American Wedding’. I thought the script had a lot of depth and intelligence, and it really just jumped off the page.”

” ‘Mad Men’ was really my first television role, and it never feels like TV to me. It’s done at such a high level.”

“If I could do one thing over I’d have been nicer to my parents.” 

 

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