Phil Abraham started out as Mad Men's Director of Photography (and won an Emmy last month for outstanding cinematography for the pilot). Now he's one of the show's directors.

Q: We've learned a lot about Duck Phillips in the two episodes you directed this season. Are there any challenges to telling his story?

A: It's nice to be in a position with scripts where we learn more about a character, as opposed to just alluding to who this guy is. Here we scratch deeper than the surface with Duck, and you feel like you're working with a cleaner slate, which is fun. Obviously, as clean a slate as you have, you're still working off a script, but there's room for creating the character in a fresh way. And you want to get it right: You want to feel like you're serving the material well, and you're also dealing with a performance that really is new in terms of what it's revealing. When you have John Slattery or Jon Hamm, their characters are pretty well-established so you know exactly where you're going to go. But with a character like Duck, you're really discovering all this stuff for the first time and peering in on his inner demons, so you do have a little bit more of a responsibility to make sure you're getting the tone of that correct.

Q: What was it like working with Chauncey the dog in "Maidenform"?

Continue reading "Q&A - Phil Abraham (Director of Episodes 6 and 11)" »

John Slattery talks about the Emmys and what it's like to break up with his real-life wife on the small screen.

Q: Congratulations on the Emmys.

A: Thanks a lot. Yeah, it was good. It was looking grim there for a couple of minutes. But [Best Supporting Actor winner] Zeljko Ivanek is a pal of mine, and he's really a great actor, so I was glad for him. Not as glad for him as I was sad for myself, but almost.

Q: Was there a lot of partying after the Emmys?

A: Uh, yeah. I had to get the hell out of Los Angeles just so I could save my liver. It was either New York or the Betty Ford clinic -- I flipped a coin and ended up at home.

Q: Can you relate to Roger's devil-may-care lifestyle?

Continue reading "Q&A - John Slattery (Roger Sterling)" »

Gay Perello joined Mad Men with Season 2 and talks to AMCtv.com about the props that drove her nuts and how important ice cubes are.

Q: What prop changes did you bring to Season 2?

A: Jon Hamm's watch was something that Matt [Weiner] wasn't that crazy about, and it had been established quite a bit in Season 1. So I showed Matt a couple different styles, and we loved this one particular company called Jaeger LeCoultre. They make some fabulous timepieces that are very classic and have been around for two centuries. There's this one watch that I really love. It's called a Reverso, with a rectangular face, and you're able to flip the dial to a case on the back, where we thought this would be really great to have it engraved with Don's initials at one point. Showing it to Jon on the first day... he said, "I'm kind of a round watch face guy." And I said, "Well, we talked about that, but let's look at this cool little feature that you can play with." Then he said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, this will work," and he started to really like it... And then Matt had wrote in an episode that Betty takes his watch to have it engraved, so it got to have a little more play than we thought it would.

Q: What unique challenges does this show present?

Continue reading "Q&A - Gay Perello (Property Master)" »

Michael Gladis plays Paul Kinsey, a typewriter thief and aspiring playwright who heads South to fight for civil rights. In this AMC.tv interview, he discusses the Emmys, the beard, and Ukrainian food.

Q: What was it like being at the Emmys this year?

A: It was like a dream. We were all so grateful that we were recognized and nominated for so many awards...Matt [Weiner] was very clear - he kept telling and re-telling us that if we won best drama that we were all to get up on stage. When they announced us, it seemed like an eternity between when he read "And the winner is..." and when he said Mad Men, and I guess I jumped five feet up in the air. It was like a dream. It was quite a view from up there.

Q: What's been your favorite scene so far this season?

Continue reading "Q&A - Michael Gladis (Paul Kinsey)" »

Amy Wells, the set decorator for Mad Men, has it tough. But her job is worth it, she says, because the actors are so appreciative: "Jon Hamm will often come on the set and go, 'Wow. You did it again.'" Here, she reveals the tricks of her trade.

Q: This season, there are so many new locations. Has that made your job more difficult?

A: Sometimes I read the script and get so much anxiety. We're a seven-day show, so you can well imagine what it's like. Somebody comes up with an idea, and it's like, "Great. I'm really glad you have that idea. Now I have to go find the stuff." Everybody else's job is putting words on paper, and the art director can draw things with a pencil, but my job is to literally go out there and put my hands on something. It's insane is what it is.

Q: What's been most difficult?

Continue reading "Q&A - Amy Wells (Set Decorator)" »

Actor Joel Murray plays Freddy Rumsen, the man who got Peggy promoted in Season 1 then was forced out of Sterling Cooper because of his drinking in Season 2. He talked to AMCtv.com about musical zippers and wetting his pants, among other things.

Q: You're featured extensively in last week's episode "Sixth Month Leave." Do you have a favorite scene?

A: The scene after his pants-wetting incident when he goes into Peggy's office to check and see how everything went and tried to pretend like everything was fine -- I was pretty excited about that one. It's a wonderfully sad scene. The writing was just fabulous, kind of dark and humorous. There was something so simple about it that I liked and when we got done doing it the first take, I turned around and one of the costumer girls was crying. I was playing it in a way that I thought might be touching, but I didn't realize that somebody would be crying already. Maybe at the end of the episode I thought, but it tugged some heartstrings early.

Q: How did they manage to show Freddy wetting his pants in "Six Month Leave"?

Continue reading "Q&A - Joel Murray (Freddy Rumsen)" »

Cinematographer Chris Manley joined Mad Men with Season 2. He talks to AMCtv.com about how the camera work helps the show achieve its period feel... and what prop he once secretly adjusted.

Q: What Season 1 aspects did you continue into Season 2?

A: The thing that I like about the first season, and that really plays to Matt's tastes, is the fact that it felt like it was shot in 1960. So we try not to do anything that they couldn't have done in 1962.  We never use steadicam at all. We don't move the camera that often but when we do, it's on a dolly and we do old-fashioned moving shots. They didn't have such a variety of lenses back then. One thing I loved about Season 1 is that the close-ups were medium lenses which is almost impossible to do with two cameras, so it felt like they were shooting it like a movie. One shot at a time. What a medium lens does is it keeps more of the background in the shot in terms of perspective, so that you feel the environment more. You feel the set. You feel the smoke. You feel all of those elements that make you believe it's 1962.

Q: Did Matt Weiner point to a specific scene from Season 1 to help you understand what he wanted?

Continue reading "Q&A - Chris Manley (Cinematographer)" »

Colin Hanks may be Tom's son, but he still had to beg Matthew Weiner for a part on Mad Men. He discusses learning about Catholicism and longing for the days when suits and baby-faces were the norm.

Q: Is it true you badgered Matt Weiner for a year to get on the show?

A: I read an article in the Business section of the New York Times back when they were shooting the pilot, and I thought, "Well that sounds kind of cool." Later on I watched the first six episodes On Demand and fell in love with it. I kept thinking, "I could be on this show. They're all wearing suits and are kind of baby-faced. I can do that!" So the next morning I started making phone calls to try to meet with the creator and plead my case. I got a chance to meet with Matt, who was very kind to me, the major geek that I was. And he said, "We'll keep you in mind, we'll let you know if we think of something." I didn't think it was going to be a priest -- that was sort of a shock -- but in a great way that was a huge challenge for me.

Q: Do you know much about Catholicism?

Continue reading "Q&A - Colin Hanks (Father Gill)" »

Rich Sommer, who plays Harry Crane, the head of Sterling Cooper's TV department, talks about acting with John Slattery and Robert Morse and how surreal it was to go to the Playboy Mansion.

Q: You've had many scenes with just you and John Slattery, and a scene with Robert Morse. What's that like?

A: It's pretty incredible. John's a hell of an actor, and we had joked at the beginning of the season about how we had never really done a scene together, and then literally a week after we had been joking about it, we had our first scene together. He's a very playful and generous actor. As for Bobby... he's this enigmatic, Yoda-type guy. He is an acting legend, stage and screen. To sit around with him at work and B.S. is one thing, but to actually get to work with him is another experience entirely.

Q: I hear that you're good friends with Aaron Staton, Michael Gladis and Bryan Batt.

Continue reading "Q&A - Rich Sommer (Harry Crane)" »

Makeup artist Debbie Zoller talks about giving Bobbie Barrett a black eye and what makes Don Draper's face flawless, in this exclusive interview with AMCtv.com.

Q: How long would it take a woman to put her face on in 1962?

A: The woman that I've spoken to, a majority of them, told me they would never let their husbands see them without makeup on. When they went to bed, they had makeup on. Then they would get up when their husband was asleep and take their makeup off and put cold cream on or moisturize their face. They slept on silk pillow cases so that their hair wouldn't get messed up. Then they would get up an hour before their husbands and put their makeup back on. These women were meticulous. I asked one, "When you had your child, did you have makeup on?" She said absolutely. She had full lashes on when she was giving birth.

Q: How did you create Bobbie's black eye for Episode 5?

Continue reading "Q&A: Debbie Zoller (Makeup Department Head)" »