Mad Men's Moss Puts Bad Bangs to Good Use

She’s only 26, but actress Elisabeth Moss has already commandeered a niche: She has a knack for playing “easily underestimated innocents,” Emily Nussbaum writes in New York. Moss describes Peggy Olson—“the secretary with the unflattering bangs” she plays on the hit AMC show Mad Men—as “the one who is stepped on a little bit and has a really good heart.”

“She’s a brilliant loner,” Nussbaum writes of Moss’ character, “repelled by the grosser aspects of the men around her but even more alienated by her fellow secretaries … an eaglet disguised as a wren, capable of keeping secrets when she needs to, even from herself.” Moss, along with counterparts on The Office, 30 Rock and others, is leading a “renaissance of female nerdliness,” Nussbaum thrills. (More Mad Men stories.)