Most likely to succeed? A look at the future possibilities for the cast of ...

Its been months since Mad Men cast members have collected or in some instances, poached their favorite items from the set and have started moving past the show. January Jones said she nicked a silver set, and John Slattery said he took a lamp from Rogers office. Creator Matthew Weiner held on to Rogers bar.

Meanwhile, Mad Mens audience is left to digest the last six episodes, the first of which begins Sunday night.

For Mad Men devotees, the characters feel so familiar, and were so wedded to theircarefully curated mid-century to late-60s looks, that imagining them in outside roles feels almost sacrilegious. Soon a new process begins:getting accustomed to witnessing cast members in the next steps of their careers, even if they feel like giant anachronisms.

Of course, some cast members have positioned themselves for the inevitable better than others, but heres a breakdown of who would get voted Most Likely to Succeed following Mad Men:

Sure bets:

Elisabeth Moss

Much like her character, Peggy Olson, Elisabeth Moss really seems to have her stuff together. Shes picked thoughtful, interesting projects such as Jane Campions Top of the Lake and The One I Love that have been well-received. Both are still available via Netflix streaming, and fans of Top of the Lake have their fingers crossed that the announcement of a second season means Moss will be reprising her role as Detective Robin Griffin.

Moss isalso starring in the revival of Wendy Wassersteins Pulitzer-winning play, The Heidi Chronicles, on Broadway.

And even though it took some getting used to, she wisely ditched Peggys good-girl wash-and-set mouse-brown locks in favor of loose blond waves. She has been showing up at premieres and other promotional events in modern, attention-seeking garb. Moss is like the Tracy Flick of actresses. She has mapped out her career path, which co-star Jon Hamm alluded to in an interview with GQ, and it shows.

Kiernan Shipka

If nothing else, Shipka, 15, can probably spend the rest of her days as a sought-after fashion plate, though not in the weird, slightly unnerving Chloe Sevigny sort of way. As weve watched Sally Draper grow up, weve watched Shipka grow up, too, apparently with nary an awkward phase in sight, and the actress has had grown women salivating over the contents of her closet since she was 11. We even have ideas for business cards: Kiernan Shipka, fashion sherpa.

Fashion aside, Shipka has been working almost since birth (she was a Gerber baby) and she has a couple of movies in the pipeline: Fan Girl, a comedy with Meg Ryan and Scott Adsit (30 Rock), and February, a thriller set at a boarding school like Miss Porters, but darker! Shipkas first cinematic lead in One and Two, directed by Andrew Droz Palermo, premiered earlier this year at SXSW.

As far as material goes that I want to do, its stuff that does scare me and is challenging, Shipka told Indiewire. Material that is fun and with good people [laughs] . . . hopefully, fingers crossed. But just constantly being challenged and working on material that I like is the dream.

Jon Hamm

Hamm has expressed worries about getting pigeonholed as a romantic comedy star, which is a valid concern, although he might also want to steer clear of scripts that call for moody, emotionally distant, self-medicating jerks, too. In Million Dollar Arm, he played a modern-day rich jerk who starts to drink too much.A Young Doctors Notebook was was more of a showcase of Daniel Radcliffes talents than Hamms, and there, too, Hamm played a self-medicating doctor in Middle-of-Nowhere, Russia.In Bridesmaids, he was a bro-y, Porsche-driving jerk, but he was hilarious, and this explains the anticipation for seeing him in the Netflix adaptation of Wet Hot American Summer, which premiers in July.

As evidenced by promising turns in 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Saturday Night Live, Hamm is a natural at comedy he takes to nerdy, pocket-protector-sporting outfits surprisingly well, given his classic good looks.

Look, the one constant thing Ive had in my career is now removed, Hamm told GQ. And thats an eye-opener: Are people still going to take me seriously? Am I just going to do romantic comedies for the rest of my life? Whats next? And I dont know, you know? I wish I was smug enough to have had a grand plan. I guess some people would say, Okay, the last three years of Mad Men is going to be like this: I want to do a play. I want to do this. I want to do that. I was just like, I want to do something that seems cool.

On the bubble:

Christina Hendricks

More than any other figure in Mad Men, Christina Hendricks is the one who is most impossible to separate from her character, the inimitable Joan Harris, and she knows it.

Last month, Hendricks changed her hair color from Joans signature red to strawberry blonde, and Clairol, for which Hendricks is a brand ambassador,pretty much went nuts letting everyone know about it. Has there ever been so much hoopla for an actress slightly changing her hair color? Itwas definitely a calculated move for Hendricks to communicate Im not Joan anymore!

Hendricks got lost in Gods Pocket, the film co-written and directed by Slattery, her Mad Men co-star, and suffered a similar fate inI Dont Know How She Does It, both performances where she was present, but not especially memorable.

She had the misfortune of starring in Lost River, the Ryan Gosling-directed movie that did so poorly at Cannes last year that Warner Bros. elected not to release it in theaters. Gosling bore the responsibility for that turkey, but still. Heres how Variety critic Justin Chang described it:

Had Terrence Malick and David Lynch somehow conceived an artistic love-child together, only to see it get kidnapped, strangled and repeatedly kicked in the face by Nicolas Winding Refn, the results might look and sound something like Lost River, a risible slab of Detroit gothic that marks an altogether inauspicious writing-directing debut for Ryan Gosling.

Not exactly the sort of wordsyou wantto be associated with when youre trying to graduate from prestige television.

However, Hendricks is starring in another Refn movie. She did Drive with Gosling and shes working on The Neon Demon. Shes also in Dark Places, based on the 2009 Gillian Flynn novel of the same name. Given the enormity of Gone Girl, this seems promising, assuming shes not overshadowed by Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult andChlo Grace Moretz.

Vincent Kartheiser

Kartheiser was just so good at being the hateful, insecure weasel of a man that is Pete Campbell, soit was easy to squint and/or roll your eyes at him whenever he appeared onscreen. Its difficult to disassociate him from that Campbell, especially when he appears in public with that shaved hairline, and he hasnt had any truly high-profile work since Mad Men started that helps us visualize him as anyone else. Kartheisers tastes run a little eclectic in a land of mansions, McMansions and muscle cars, hes the guy who lived in seamlessly designed 580-square foot house until he got engaged to Mad Men guest star Alexis Bledel. It may be small, but its areallynice house its even accompanied by a matching tiny sauna, and it was featured in a Dwell magazine spread. We may not see him in anything huge for awhile, but thats likely by design.

But Kartheisers in a couple of indie projects that sound interesting. Theres Day Out of Days, a new film by Broken English director Zoe Cassavetes about 40-year-old actress whos dealing with the realities of competing with younger actresses and getting eclipsed by her ex-husband. Kartheiser stars alongside Melanie Griffith and Scandals Bellamy Young.

Theres also Red Knot, with Olivia Thirlby (Juno), about a couple on their honeymoon aboard a ship headed to the Antarctic. Scott Cohen filmed the movie on 350-foot research vessel on a 23-day trip from Argentina to Antarctica, with a script he cobbled together in two months, using the ships other passengers as extras.

Hmm:

January Jones

Maybe its just more difficult to shake a character who is defined by their ability to be supremely unpleasant. It was easy to hate Betty, even when you could recognizethe sources of her frustration and her inability to do much about them.

Consider Joness roles before Mad Men. Like her bit part in Love, Actually. Or American Wedding. Or Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. Its a dubious mix of forgettable scenes, but maybe Jones just needed a show like Mad Men to showcase her preternatural ability to look as though she has just wafted fumes from a nearby landfill.

Jones has moved on to Last Man on Earth, with Will Forte, where shes one of two of the last women on Earth. The other is played by Kristen Schaal, whom Forte regrets marrying. He didnt know Joness character, Melissa, existed, and he experiences the matrimonial equivalent of buyers remorse. Stripped of Bettys support garments and icy remove, Jones sort of fades into the unremarkable nature of her previous roles. But its worth checking out Sweetwater, a 2013 western in which Jones plays a gun-toting painted lady.

Jessica Par

If nothing else,Par will always be remembered for Zou Bisou Bisou a moment some of us are still processing.

Like Betty, some just never warmed to Megan. Salon called her the overbite that launched a thousand irrelevant subplots. Maybe its just the curse of playing Dons wives. Par doesnt have much on her docket for the future, though shemay be taking a break. She did just gave birth last month.

Par is rumored to be playing Samantha Baxter in the Mike Bruce film Desiree Dream, but theres not much buzz aside from that. Although Megan Draper was the breakthrough role of her career, Par has yet to truly capitalize on it, as her most recognizable role outside of Mad Men is a shirtless minute she endured in Hot Tub Time Machine.

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