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The (Mad) Man – Part 3
In part three of our exclusive chat with Matthew Weiner, creator of Mad Men, we discuss the importance of casting in bringing his characters to life.
The characters resonate with audiences, what do you attribute that to?
"I think the reason that these characters resonate is because they are a combination of the people I know and the lives of my writers. The actors are 50% of the reason because of the wholeness of what they do and what they bring to the show. I observe their behaviour sometimes and put it in the show and they love it."
Do you wonder if the actors will find it hard to shake these characters in future?
"I'm not an actor but I'm sure there is something negative about portraying an indelible character and having it stuck to you. But I don't think there is anyone who would trade that for not being in the show.
"As far as their future goes, I suppose Jon Hamm is the one who is really going to have to handle the bulk of that. He's become such a huge star and will have more opportunities than he ever dreamed of. Just between you and me, if I was going to have someone stick to me, Don Draper's not a bad guy (laughs). He's a great anti-hero, he's intelligent, he's got a good sense of humour. He's childish sometimes. He's mysterious, and you know, just saying someone's handsome over and over again, I'd love to have that stuck to me (laughs). Don Draper can do anything and that's part of why the show works. He does a lot of awful things and we go easy on him and a lot of that is Jon. John makes that possible."
How involved are you in the casting process?
"I cast every role on the show. I have casting directors who put amazing actors in front of me, but there isn't one person that's ever spoken or appeared on the show that I haven't approved. They didn't want Jon Hamm at first because it's hard to market a show without a star. But I felt that if we could find the right people that the audience would believe that these were the characters they were playing, because they had no previous association with unknown actors, it could work.
"So without having the commercial pressure to hire someone famous, I was able to pick who I thought were the best actors for these parts. I feel I have the talent of finding the people who can personify the things I am writing. Sometimes you don't even know how interesting the character is going to be until this human being inhabits it. And we've had a lot of tiny parts that have been inhabited by great actors and all of a sudden they become a huge part of the show."
Was it hard to get the performances you wanted from your cast?
"There's always a process and that's why there's a director and an executive producer. But I think that these people are able to really hit it out of the park as actors because they partly have qualities that the character has. No-one is so far from the realm of their character that they have to be pushed too hard to create them. Take someone like Vincent (Kartheiser) who plays Pete Campbell. He has spent his career being cast as hustlers and drug addicts but when you see him in that suit with that haircut, playing this entitled New York blue blood, he has a lot of that. He has very high status and he has a formality to him and it's not an effort. He's not putting it on and it's not a mask.
"A lot of the actors are from the same region of the United States; most of them are from the mid-west. And the mid-west of the United States lays claim to being more down to earth, more natural, more old-fashioned and more polite. There's a formality about the people from the mid-west. Jon (Hamm) is from St Louis, January (Jones, who plays Betty Draper) is from South Dakota, Vincent's from Minnesota, Lizzie Moss who plays Peggie is from Los Angeles, but she was raised in Chicago for a lot of her life. It goes on actually, and I didn't do it on purpose. A lot of the human qualities of these performers are brought to their roles and I write to that so no-one has to do a backbend to create a person.
"Another thing I'd like to add is that these people are really smart and I think all actors are intelligent, but we don't discuss the meaning of things. The actors are in it and they understand what it means to play something as the character and not play the subtext. They know in their heart that they may be driven by something else that they brought into the scene with them, but we never have to explain that. We never have English papers about what the theme of the episode is and what their character would do - they just do it, end of discussion. This is a gift because we shoot an episode in seven days and their preparation is essential to that. Seven days for an episode is nothing, especially this deep into a series, it's usually ten or fifteen days. I think Lost now is ten days. It's tough; I have an amazing producer, that's really the truth of it."
Check out Movie Extra http://mnc.tv/channel/movie-extra for info on the screening of Mad Men Season 3. Mad Men Seasons 1 & 2 are available on DVD now.