AMC's hit series Mad Men turned the channel into a legitimate network for original programming. Their previous claim to fame was simply showing old films, as their title American Movie Classics indicated. Harkening back to a more "classic" era, Mad Men takes place in the world of 1960s advertising. The smoldering period piece stars Jon Hamm as Don Draper, the top ad man at Sterling Cooper. The world of the office features lots of smoking, suits and pre-sexual harassment sexism.
"I guess the surprising part is it's a bluntness, sort of leavened with politeness," said Hamm. "There was certainly an ethic of politesse or politeness that people had and yet, they were often very blunt or very direct with their feelings. They were very outward. It wasn't hidden underneath a layer of political correctness... so I think that's the really tricky part of it, and I think most challenging to sort of see and be like, 'Whoa, okay, right out there with it, huh?'"
Just one week before his Emmy nomination, SuicideGirls caught up with Hamm as he greeted press at the Beverly Hilton hotel to preview season two, beginning July 27. Season two jumps ahead two years, as part of series creator Matthew Weiner's plan to cover the entire '60s in five seasons. We left Draper just beginning to reconnect with his wife after a season-long affair with a mistress, and the revelation that he stole a war buddy's identity. Specific plot lines remain secret, but there is still much discussion to be had in the world of Mad Men.
Question: Obviously this is a wonderful ensemble, but did you know from the beginning it would kind of be the Don Draper show?
Jon Hamm: I think that's just the structure of the show, a lot of it. I don't really think it's "The Don Draper Show." It is in fact a pretty complete world and there are quite a few people in it. I think my guy is the guy that connects all these people. He's the one person that knows everybody in the show, basically. I think that you need that if you're telling any kind of narrative. So yeah, I guess[ed] reading the pilot that this is the main guy and these other people are around him, but it is truly an ensemble piece.
Q: Does Don know what's wrong with him?
JH: Maybe. I think a lot of us know what's wrong with us and I think we find that it's harder to fix than we may want to endeavor to try to fix. This is, again, a man who has compartmentalized a significant portion of his life. Once those walls are erected, they're hard to break through and break down. Whether he knows or not is a completely different question to whether he's going to do anything about it or not.
Q: Is his mystery still unfolding?
JH: Absolutely. We revealed a significant portion of it last season, but there are still quite a few grey areas and gaps to fill in. There are a lot of questions that still remained unanswered and I know we start to find those out a little more.
Q: Now that the show is definitely going to go a few years, does that change things for you?
JH: What have you heard?
Q: Matthew Weiner has a give year plan. Knowing you can look that far ahead, the job's going to be there
JH: I think it's kind of tricky to try to look that far ahead because again, we're playing people that don't necessarily know what's going to happen from day to day. As soon as you start making plans, that's when things tend to blow up in your face. It doesn't help me or hinder me in any way. I'm just happy to be working on whatever's in front of me.
Q: How do you like playing all the things that aren't said on the show?
JH: Well, it's scary a lot of times because you think, especially given the nature of a lot of television writing, everything's sort of laid out and hit on the head very clearly. In fact, scripts are rewritten to make it even more obvious to certain people. So you have to have a lot of trust in your material and you have to have a lot of trust in your post-production people and editors and things like that that they would let that moment play and not cut it for time, it's scary but ultimately incredibly rewarding because you're creating something that is significantly different than most in its pace and its storytelling.
Q: Will there be more great advertising moments like when he created the term "carousel" for the slide projector?
JH: Well, that's a part of the world so I would imagine so. Not to get too specific, but this is what this guy does for a living and part of what we see is what he does for a living. So he has to be creatively inspired and he has to be good at his job so he feels that pressure definitely. So probably, yeah.
Q: What did you know about the period before starting the show?
JH: I knew I would say a fairly average amount. I wasn't alive during that period of time but I did have an affinity. As Matt talks about, there were an awful lot of interesting cultural and artistic and political and economic things happening at that time so to be a student of history at all, you would certainly be aware of certain massive upheavals, whether it's Vietnam or the Kennedys or Martin Luther King or whoever it was that were happening at that period. Then digging a little deeper, you find the artistic movements of that time and the literary movements of that time, film and all of that stuff. I find it fascinating so I knew a fair amount about it. I wasn't obsessive about it in the way that someone like, oh, Matt is, but I knew my fair share.
Q: Would you like to see the politeness of the era come back now?
JH: Sure, I think we live in a time where the sort of rudeness and coarseness is holding sway a little bit. You can still be direct without being a total douchebag about it.
Q: Now that the show is a hit, secrecy becomes more important to maintain with the story. How does it feel to be part of a big secret?
JH: Well, there's a lot of power in saying no and there's a lot of power in not saying anything. I think that whets people's appetite. Again, I think part of the culture we live in where everybody's so exposed all the time and people want to do a reality show about their whatever, it's a little coarse and crass to be that available. I think part of the attraction of our show is it reveals itself at its own pace. I think that's what has attracted people to it.
Q: What are the themes of season two?
JH: The themes of the second season are not dissimilar to the themes from the first. It's people dealing with the relationships in their lives and managing their lives. Whether it's Don or Peggy or Pete or Roger or Joan, these people have a lot of baggage in their lives and they have to manage that or manipulate. It's set in this wonderful sandbox that we get to play around in. The more you think you know about these people, the more they surprise you I guess.
Q: Has being immersed in this world changed the way you react in your own life?
JH: Well, I think the more you participate in things like this with several microphones pointed at you at once, the more you realize that there is a great power as I was just saying in trying to reveal as little as possible. Because once it's out there, it's out there. We live in a time of incredible immersion in the media and availability in the media. It's omnipresent. There's no such thing as down time or off the air or anything. You say one thing and it gets echoed and banded around the world instantly. So I think it makes you certainly aware of what you're saying a little more. I am much more reticent to shoot my mouth off these days.
Q: Have people really changed much since the '60s or it's just been polished?
JH: I don't know if we have a polish. I think all the polish has been worn off, sadly. I think people fundamentally haven't changed since the Stone Age. We've got that very, very thin veneer of social construct has worn off rather quickly but I don't think people have changed too much. I just think we hide it better now.
Q: Did guys get away with more back then?
JH: Sure. Watch the show. The HR department would be very busy right now at Sterling Cooper if it as 2008 and these people behaved that way.
Q: How difficult is it to manage your own life now?
JH: Well, you have a lot less time but one of the fortunate things about being on a cable schedule is we only do 13. We do them in seven days an episode. We're not on a 22-episode schedule. We're not going from May to September. It's more of a concentrated sort of sprint and then you finish and you chill out for two weeks and just veg out.
Q: What's an ad you can't get out of your head?
JH: I can't think of one in particular right now but as a kid, I was that annoying little kid that would run around and sing commercials and television commercials and radio ads and all of that stuff. I was a very big fan of that.
Season two of Mad Men premieres this Sunday July 27th on AMC. For more information go to www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/.
"I guess the surprising part is it's a bluntness, sort of leavened with politeness," said Hamm. "There was certainly an ethic of politesse or politeness that people had and yet, they were often very blunt or very direct with their feelings. They were very outward. It wasn't hidden underneath a layer of political correctness... so I think that's the really tricky part of it, and I think most challenging to sort of see and be like, 'Whoa, okay, right out there with it, huh?'"
Just one week before his Emmy nomination, SuicideGirls caught up with Hamm as he greeted press at the Beverly Hilton hotel to preview season two, beginning July 27. Season two jumps ahead two years, as part of series creator Matthew Weiner's plan to cover the entire '60s in five seasons. We left Draper just beginning to reconnect with his wife after a season-long affair with a mistress, and the revelation that he stole a war buddy's identity. Specific plot lines remain secret, but there is still much discussion to be had in the world of Mad Men.
Question: Obviously this is a wonderful ensemble, but did you know from the beginning it would kind of be the Don Draper show?
Jon Hamm: I think that's just the structure of the show, a lot of it. I don't really think it's "The Don Draper Show." It is in fact a pretty complete world and there are quite a few people in it. I think my guy is the guy that connects all these people. He's the one person that knows everybody in the show, basically. I think that you need that if you're telling any kind of narrative. So yeah, I guess[ed] reading the pilot that this is the main guy and these other people are around him, but it is truly an ensemble piece.
Q: Does Don know what's wrong with him?
JH: Maybe. I think a lot of us know what's wrong with us and I think we find that it's harder to fix than we may want to endeavor to try to fix. This is, again, a man who has compartmentalized a significant portion of his life. Once those walls are erected, they're hard to break through and break down. Whether he knows or not is a completely different question to whether he's going to do anything about it or not.
Q: Is his mystery still unfolding?
JH: Absolutely. We revealed a significant portion of it last season, but there are still quite a few grey areas and gaps to fill in. There are a lot of questions that still remained unanswered and I know we start to find those out a little more.
Q: Now that the show is definitely going to go a few years, does that change things for you?
JH: What have you heard?
Q: Matthew Weiner has a give year plan. Knowing you can look that far ahead, the job's going to be there
JH: I think it's kind of tricky to try to look that far ahead because again, we're playing people that don't necessarily know what's going to happen from day to day. As soon as you start making plans, that's when things tend to blow up in your face. It doesn't help me or hinder me in any way. I'm just happy to be working on whatever's in front of me.
Q: How do you like playing all the things that aren't said on the show?
JH: Well, it's scary a lot of times because you think, especially given the nature of a lot of television writing, everything's sort of laid out and hit on the head very clearly. In fact, scripts are rewritten to make it even more obvious to certain people. So you have to have a lot of trust in your material and you have to have a lot of trust in your post-production people and editors and things like that that they would let that moment play and not cut it for time, it's scary but ultimately incredibly rewarding because you're creating something that is significantly different than most in its pace and its storytelling.
Q: Will there be more great advertising moments like when he created the term "carousel" for the slide projector?
JH: Well, that's a part of the world so I would imagine so. Not to get too specific, but this is what this guy does for a living and part of what we see is what he does for a living. So he has to be creatively inspired and he has to be good at his job so he feels that pressure definitely. So probably, yeah.
Q: What did you know about the period before starting the show?
JH: I knew I would say a fairly average amount. I wasn't alive during that period of time but I did have an affinity. As Matt talks about, there were an awful lot of interesting cultural and artistic and political and economic things happening at that time so to be a student of history at all, you would certainly be aware of certain massive upheavals, whether it's Vietnam or the Kennedys or Martin Luther King or whoever it was that were happening at that period. Then digging a little deeper, you find the artistic movements of that time and the literary movements of that time, film and all of that stuff. I find it fascinating so I knew a fair amount about it. I wasn't obsessive about it in the way that someone like, oh, Matt is, but I knew my fair share.
Q: Would you like to see the politeness of the era come back now?
JH: Sure, I think we live in a time where the sort of rudeness and coarseness is holding sway a little bit. You can still be direct without being a total douchebag about it.
Q: Now that the show is a hit, secrecy becomes more important to maintain with the story. How does it feel to be part of a big secret?
JH: Well, there's a lot of power in saying no and there's a lot of power in not saying anything. I think that whets people's appetite. Again, I think part of the culture we live in where everybody's so exposed all the time and people want to do a reality show about their whatever, it's a little coarse and crass to be that available. I think part of the attraction of our show is it reveals itself at its own pace. I think that's what has attracted people to it.
Q: What are the themes of season two?
JH: The themes of the second season are not dissimilar to the themes from the first. It's people dealing with the relationships in their lives and managing their lives. Whether it's Don or Peggy or Pete or Roger or Joan, these people have a lot of baggage in their lives and they have to manage that or manipulate. It's set in this wonderful sandbox that we get to play around in. The more you think you know about these people, the more they surprise you I guess.
Q: Has being immersed in this world changed the way you react in your own life?
JH: Well, I think the more you participate in things like this with several microphones pointed at you at once, the more you realize that there is a great power as I was just saying in trying to reveal as little as possible. Because once it's out there, it's out there. We live in a time of incredible immersion in the media and availability in the media. It's omnipresent. There's no such thing as down time or off the air or anything. You say one thing and it gets echoed and banded around the world instantly. So I think it makes you certainly aware of what you're saying a little more. I am much more reticent to shoot my mouth off these days.
Q: Have people really changed much since the '60s or it's just been polished?
JH: I don't know if we have a polish. I think all the polish has been worn off, sadly. I think people fundamentally haven't changed since the Stone Age. We've got that very, very thin veneer of social construct has worn off rather quickly but I don't think people have changed too much. I just think we hide it better now.
Q: Did guys get away with more back then?
JH: Sure. Watch the show. The HR department would be very busy right now at Sterling Cooper if it as 2008 and these people behaved that way.
Q: How difficult is it to manage your own life now?
JH: Well, you have a lot less time but one of the fortunate things about being on a cable schedule is we only do 13. We do them in seven days an episode. We're not on a 22-episode schedule. We're not going from May to September. It's more of a concentrated sort of sprint and then you finish and you chill out for two weeks and just veg out.
Q: What's an ad you can't get out of your head?
JH: I can't think of one in particular right now but as a kid, I was that annoying little kid that would run around and sing commercials and television commercials and radio ads and all of that stuff. I was a very big fan of that.
Season two of Mad Men premieres this Sunday July 27th on AMC. For more information go to www.amctv.com/originals/madmen/.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
can't wait to see the next episode..