Don Draper A man to project your fantasies on What's it like to be too handsome? The actor who made his TV debut as "gorgeous guy at bar" in Ally McBeal in 1997 stops fiddling with his bagel and looks at me glassily across the coffee table of a Soho hotel room. That's ridiculous. What's too good-looking? That's a ridiculous thing to say. There's no such thing as too good-looking. Isn't there? Maybe there is. There was, reportedly, a moment in 2007 when creator Matthew Weiner and director Alan Taylor hesitated over casting him as the lead in Mad Men. Was this guy, with his lantern jaw, bedroom eyes, covetable hair and other annoyingly scintillating attributes, too damned perfect to play Don Draper? Maybe they should go back to one of the 79 other actors who had auditioned for the role. Was it like that? Hamm shakes his head. It wasn't like they came up to me and said: 'So Jon we would like to cast you but ...' That seems silly in many ways because I'm not ... He pauses for ages, pours a coffee and sips it. Hamm speaks very, very slowly during this interview in a pleasing baritone as though he's the lead in The Leonard Cohen Story (which, incidentally, must happen: imagine Don Draper trying out Famous Blue Raincoat on his girlfriend in a freezing 4am New York apartment). Not what? ... I'm not Brad Pitt, for God's sake. This is true in a trivial sense. But also false in a more substantial one. When a Newsweek reporter was asked to research an article headlined Why the Ladies Love Jon Hamm a couple of years ago (tough gig), she heard the following from friends: "He looks like he would know how to throw me to the wall and do me right" and "He has that whole 'strap a sword to me, I'll cut down men and then ravish you' thing." Aren't these precisely the fantasies that Pitt, certainly circa Thelma and Louise if not Tree of Life, unleashed among his target demographic? When I put this to Hamm, he smiles Oliver Hardy's dainty smile and plays with his meal prissily. He talks like Kris Kristofferson on downers and eats breakfast as if a graduate of Little Lord Fauntleroy's Finishing School. Hamm's wearing a button-down plaid shirt, blue jeans and a brown jacket - the sort of blah outfit you can pull off if you can look in the mirror and think: "Clooney isn't all that." He looks younger, more boyish, less self-assured but more carefree than Draper. "I think a component of this character," Hamm replies finally, "is that he is presentable in the world and Matthew saw that in me - that he's a person in the room who maybe you wanna talk to. Or you're attracted to or whatever it is. And I'm glad to have that capacity. This is why the last time we saw Don Draper, in the finale to season four, was such a disappointment for so many women (and no doubt men). There, you remember, he proposed to and was accepted by his secretary Megan rather than choosing Dr Faye Miller, the no less gorgeous but more intellectually, and probably emotionally, challenging shrink. "Even though Don ended up making this overture to Megan," said Matthew Weiner, "and the audience felt sort of peculiar about it, so did the people in the office." Peggy (the clever and idealistic copywriter) even had to be counselled by Joan (the voluptuous and pragmatic secretary) for the affront to having her illusions shattered. Don, I suggest to Hamm, went for the easy option, choosing the 25-year-old cutie on the other side of the office wall who could manage his kids and work schedule, rather than the woman who might tear his world up into interesting shreds. I agree with everything that you say, but I don't write the story. That is part of the reason why we are challenged and why we are fascinated by this man. Over the first four seasons we came to see how he chose Betty and how he came to be with Betty. I think what Matt did really wonderfully was to show how cyclical these things are. Early in the season when Dr Miller said: 'Guys like you are married in a year. Don't worry about it,' Don is taken aback. But it turns out to be true. At the end of the season Joan says practically the same thing to Peggy: 'Why are you surprised? And why do you care? Who gives a shit? You can't be so affected by this.' Don, that's to say, isn't as interesting as our romantic projections. So is he resentful that Weiner took his character in a direction he may not have liked? I can't be that. I've given over to Matthew, I think wisely, complete domination and ownership of Don. This sounds strange but he's the creator and he's the guy who moves the chess pieces and I'm here to service that. Insanely, we're meeting so Hamm can promote a season he can't tell me anything about. "If I did spill, you'd love it!" he says. Does Don marry Megan? Does he get it on with Peggy? Or Joan? Roger Sterling? It'd be more fun to talk about it after it's happened so that you could ask: 'What were you thinking? Why were there dinosaurs? And then there were the Muppets and the episode when you were all skating, that was ridiculous. Just reveal something! Hamm gives me his taut-lipped, raised-eyebrow look. He even knows how Mad Men will end in three seasons' time, but of course won't say. Is he worried about being typecast as the mohair-suited lothario? I get 60 or so scripts about sharp-suited ad men in the 60s, sure. But I'm never going to do that again. This is something that very well could have been a pilot, nothing more. The reason I pursued it was that I was fascinated by this character from the pilot and I think I can say that that fascination has resonated for more than a few people. I don't think I've necessarily been pigeonholed but I could have been. I think with the good graces of other people who have helped me, I've been able to take on other roles almost diametrically opposed to Don Draper. He means, among other things, his comic performances in Tina Fey's sitcom 30 Rock and in the Kristen Wiig-scripted film Bridesmaids. When those people say, 'Hey, do you wanna come play in our sand box?' you go: 'You kidding me? Yeah! I didn't stumble into those things. It's striking that two brilliant women comedy writers re-imagined Hamm by riffing, probably not unconsciously, on Don Draper's sexy persona. Managing his career to ensure he doesn't get stereotyped is a problem Hamm never expected to have. The St Louis-born, English-lit grad arrived in Hollywood aged 25 with a five-year-plan. If he didn't make it in acting by 30 he would leave town and do something else. For the life of him, Hamm says, he can't imagine what. During those five years he waited tables, worked as a porn movie set designer ("I moved furniture around sweaty naked people") and played bit parts in TV shows and films of mostly dubious merit. Today, 41, he has arrived. He's hungover from partying at the Baftas. I was standing next to Stephen Fry and I thought 'Wow! I can't believe I'm doing this.' Presumably Fry thought the same thing? 'I don't think so. But still I just flashbacked to my 19-year-old self pirating Fry and Laurie videos. Only after the interview do I realise how much sense it makes that Jon Hamm loves Fry and Laurie. After all the double act did proto-Mad Men in their sketch as two crazy businessmen, drinking huge 10am whiskies, bawling business things that don't, ultimately, make sense, and fretting about women (Marjorie in Stephen Fry's case). Maybe mid-80s Uttoxeter wasn't so unlike mid-60s Madison Avenue. Hamm has teamed up again with Bridesmaids stars Wiig and Chris O'Dowd, as well with Megan Fox, for the upcoming Friends With Kids, a film written and directed by his partner of 14 years, Jennifer Westfeldt, which he co-produced. Its premise is that a pair of thirtysomething best friends notice the toll that having kids has taken on the couples they know and resolve to bypass that stress by having a child and then having a platonic relationship while dating other people. Like that's going to work. Was that a phenomenon he and Westfeldt noticed among their friends? There are parallels. Jennifer would say that she was inspired by true events. Would he ever consider a similar arrangement? What - having a kid with Jen and then leaving her for someone else? That, my friend, is not on the agenda. She's a truly inspiring and talented and amazing woman. I have this thing for strong women, you see. Unlike, it seems, Don Draper. Stuart Jeffries Peggy Olson More than just a survivor Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson. Photograph: Frank Ockenfels/AMC From the moment she read the Mad Men pilot, Elisabeth Moss fell hard for her character, Peggy Olson, attracted by her "delicious complications." Peggy was an ingenue entering a terrifying, towering new world, "and I loved the fact," says Moss, "that she was this really naive, inexperienced, wide-eyed woman - she didn't even know how to use a typewriter - and then, at the end of the pilot, she sleeps with one of her bosses!" It could have been the start of a tired story - young woman sleeps her way to the top. But Peggy is subtle, confounding, surprisingly strong; someone who uses her ideas rather than her sexuality to get ahead, and exhibits exemplary cool when the two collide. One of her earliest successes came when she was given vibrating exercise pants to test, noticed their surprisingly stimulating effect, and suggested they be sold as a stealthy sex toy, the Rejuvenator. The idea led straight to a promotion. Peggy is the quiet, mousy Catholic woman who demands her own office. She's the character for whom the word square sometimes seems to have been invented, who declares to her colleagues: "I'm Peggy Olson, and I want to smoke some marijuana." She is the secretary turned stunningly sharp advertising creative who saves the company when it teeters. And she also often seems the only character set not just to survive the 1960s, but thrive. Some of the other characters, says Moss, "have lived a lot of their lives, and they're not changing their behaviour and habits. But Peggy doesn't know what she will be. She hasn't become the person she is going to be for the rest of her life. The other notable exception is Sally Draper, who I like to imagine becoming a strident student feminist in the 1970s, fomenting revolution and thus reuniting her parents in a frenzy of shared horror. While Peggy's boss Don Draper is on an alarming downward spiral, "she's moving up," says Moss, "and they're passing each other on the way." Their bond is intense, with both nursing dark secrets. Moss's favourite moment came in an episode from the fourth series, called The Suitcase, when Don asked Peggy whether she ever thought about the baby she had after that pilot-episode liaison with colleague Pete. "I try not to," she replied, "but then it comes up out of nowhere." She paused. Playgrounds. "To me," says Moss, "that one word, 'playgrounds', is my favourite line ever, because it sums up exactly what this person's experience has been with the baby she gave away." Peggy is a still point amid a welter of trouble, whisky and pills, and one of the joys is in seeing her relationships develop: her often testy interaction with office manager Joan; the uncomfortable frisson between her and Pete - the boss she slept with who is no longer her boss. Peggy is an everywoman, and the epitome of feminism, says Moss, and she is outdoing her colleagues, while remaining essentially good. Will she take Don's job? Moss laughs. "I have no idea," she says, "but I don't think she wants it. I think she wants her own job, her own life, her own power. If she carries on like this, she'll get it. Kira Cochrane Pete Campbell Cold, spiteful - and compelling Vincent Kartheiser as Pete Campbell (centre). People used to come up to Vincent Kartheiser and tell him, to his face, that they hated him. I can see why - he inhabits the often spiteful, always immature role of Mad Men's Pete Campbell with such aplomb that I consider it a point of pride that I only call him "Pete" once during our 25-minute conversation. The good news for Kartheiser, however, is that it's happening a little less these days. "Well, it still happens sometimes," he says, "but those people are usually a couple of seasons behind. Some of Pete's immaturity went away in season four when he was given a title and more power at the agency. By that point the writers had made all of the characters a little bit human. This embodies what we love about all of Mad Men's characters but Pete especially: that they change, and that no person is simply all good or all bad. And whereas it's a bit odd to say Pete is your favourite Mad Men character, he's definitely one of the most compelling. Clearly talented but with a sense of entitlement, he has a willpower as weak as his putdowns can be cold. Yet Kartheiser says he instantly liked the character and reasons that even his most cutting lines - such as when he tells Peggy: "If you pull your waist in a little bit, you might look like a woman" - come from a motivated place. As an actor you focus on what you feel towards the person you're speaking to and where you're coming from emotionally ... so from that perspective it doesn't feel cold or cruel, it just feels like you're standing up for yourself or lashing out or releasing your anger. We all do those things in real life, lord knows I've said plenty of things that have made me sound like an egotistical little snot! Often Pete's immaturity adds humour to the show - one of my favourite scenes is the unexpected discovery that Pete and his wife Trudy are excellent dancers ("we were all seeing different trainers for two weeks for just 25 seconds of film"). Yet when they're dancing the Charleston, Pete's vision remains fixed on his bosses, desperately seeking out their admiration. Other things are harder to stomach. One scene that set the blogosphere alight was in season three when Pete slept with his neighbour's German au pair after he helped her get a dress mended. As with many things on Mad Men all was not made explicit and it was understandable why some viewers assumed he had raped her. Kartheiser maintains that the scene was never supposed to imply rape but concedes that "there were ways that we could have shown her consensual-ness a bit better. I think I'm to blame for some of that because it was perceived the way we did it to be more forceful than it was. It was definitely forceful and manipulative in some ways, but I do believe she ultimately wants what happens to happen. Despite these scenes, there are glimpses of warmth and kindness in Pete which keep him interesting. His relationship with Peggy - who gives away the child after their brief fling - is key to the show, and Kartheiser admits those are his favourite scenes. "There was a scene last season where she reads a card and finds out Trudy is going to have a baby," he says. She comes to my office and says congratulations. I think she's talking about work and she says: 'No, the baby.' It's a very simple scene but also very subtle with just the right amount of restraint and undercurrent of emotion. He says their relationship mirrors real life, where you can try to ignore something important but sometimes you can't. He could even be talking about the wonderful slow-burn nature of the show itself when he says: "Their relationship is like a needle left in your clothing. You don't see it, you don't see it ... then you sit down and it jabs you straight in the back. Tim Jonze Roger Sterling The rogue with all the best lines John Slattery as Roger Sterling. It was a "little surreal," John Slattery recalls, returning to filming on the fifth season of Mad Men, after a prolonged break while the show's producers, network and studio torturously hammered out contract details. Lizzie Moss [who plays Peggy Olson] and I were doing a scene, and the two of us were looking at each other, trying to remember how we did it a year and a half earlier - smoking and drinking and talking at the same time. It's a rather modest description of the once-in-a-decade alchemy that has made Mad Men a global cultural sensation, but Slattery, it is not really surprising to learn, has more than a little of the bone-dry wit that his scriptwriters lavish so generously on his character, Roger Sterling. Some may drool over Draper, others appreciate the sass of Joan and Peggy, but for most Mad Men fans I know, Roger is the one. Sardonic and sentimental, lovable yet unpardonable, he has the best scenes (throwing up at the feet of new clients after Don makes him eat oysters), the best storylines (a heart attack while courting twins as a "treat" for Draper) and - sorry Betty - the best hair in the show. He certainly has the best jokes, my favourite of which (there are plenty to choose from) regards the elderly Mrs Blankenship, dead of a heart attack but later revealed once to have been Roger's lover and a "queen of perversion of the highest order." "She died like she lived," he notes, aridly as ever, "surrounded by the people she answered phones for." Slattery, as it happens, initially auditioned for the Draper role, before being offered Roger - and promised, despite a modest turn in the pilot, that it would turn into a great role. Does he secretly think he ended up with the best part in the show? Not so secretly. Every time we have a table read I'll sit next to [Jon] Hamm and he'll point at the script: 'Look at that, three jokes a page! Another one for you! I am fond of him. You could ... sum him up by saying he's crass or a womaniser, he does all kinds of things that I guess are reprehensible. But at the same time he is very human, he is understanding, a good friend. When it comes to the "smoking and drinking and talking at the same time," the actor says, the scripts the cast are given are perhaps surprisingly prescriptive - with each drag and sip marked as clearly as their lines, which can be a challenge. One of the scenes says he comes in, then makes a drink, and then you hand off the drink to someone by the third line ... I mean, it's impossible. A lot of the things they write don't necessarily take into account the distance from the door to the bar, the bar to the person. It all gets hammered out in rehearsal he says - but the directions are usually right. The actor, now 49, had a distinguished career largely onstage and on television before Mad Men made him instantly recognisable across the world. For 17 years his partner has been Talia Balsam, who plays Roger's first wife Mona in the show. He describes working with Balsam as "really fantastic." Early on [in season one] there is a scene in the hospital, where I had had a heart attack. Roger keels over while with the twins but, in a lovely, delicate scene, breaks down in tears when Mona arrives at his bedside. To see her come through the door makes the scene that much easier, to play it with someone you have that much emotional history with. It really takes a lot of the work away. Producer Matt Weiner has hinted that Mad Men will finish in the present day, with Don Draper an old man. Where does Slattery see Roger? Six feet under. I'm pretty certain ... Well, it's a guess, I have no idea. What is fascinating about the show, he says, is "to see people who are waiting for social change so they can jump on board, and other people who resist that, with the uniform they have worn and continue to wear through the years. It's anybody's guess what will happen. Esther Addley Sally Draper Turbulent child of the 60s Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper. As Mad Men has progressed, certain characters have become particularly dear to our hearts - not least little Sally Draper. Don and Betty's eldest child was as meek and mild as you would expect a child of the 60s when we first encountered her. Yet watching her turbulent childhood unfold has been a constant reminder that a philandering father and cold-hearted mother take their toll on the next generation. Kiernan Shipka, 12, has been playing Sally for half of her life, so feels close to her character. "I would totally be friends with her if I knew her," she says enthusiastically. We don't run in the same circles, and we're not on the same paths in life, but we definitely have similar personalities and traits. Shipka first appeared on screen aged five months, then started acting seriously at six when her family moved to LA, so she admits she has had to grow up fast. Sally has too, with the death of her beloved Grandpa Gene, the arrival of a new sibling and, most significant of all, the separation of her parents. "The divorce was a really important point for Sally," Shipka says. She had a whole new wave of emotions. There have been mature storylines for someone so young to grapple with, but Shipka has done so adeptly, especially in the fraught scenes with her mother, which she believes have had "some great tension." Betty is particularly distressed when her daughter is found touching herself at a sleepover, but rather than address the difficulties she is going through, the Drapers, ever the early-adopters, pack her off to see a shrink. Understandably Shipka isn't allowed to watch full episodes of Mad Men yet, only her scenes, to see how they turn out. But she does attend script readings. So I'm not like, what's Mad Men? What's the 60s? Sally's appeal is that she is an average all-American girl growing up in the suburbs, making friends, notably the older and equally troubled Glen, and getting up to mischief. One of her standout moments happens when she goes to stay with Don and gives herself an asymmetric haircut while he is out on a date, much to her mother's horror. She has tried Betty's cigarettes, turned up at Don's office and, hilariously, found herself behind the wheel of a car. "Unfortunately it wasn't real," Shipka giggles. I would have loved to drive, but I'm bad enough in a golf cart. For Shipka, a budding fashionista, the costumes have been a revelation. The vintage clothes are so much fun. It has definitely got me into them. Sadly she has only been allowed to keep a couple of headbands. She has also enjoyed learning about the era. Doing Mad Men is a big history lesson. You see all of these people's lives and how different types of people were treated. Even though the show glamorises life back then, Shipka is adamant that she is happier being a child of the noughties. For a girl my age there weren't as many opportunities, for lots of different reasons. Sadly Mad Men will end just as Sally becomes an adult. With a backdrop of the summer of love, Woodstock, the pill and second-wave feminism, who knows how how she would have finally turned out? Sarah Phillips Season five of Mad Men begins at 9pm ET on Sunday 25 March on AMC in the US and on Tuesday 27 March on Sky Atlantic in the UK. Read an interview with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner in the Guide this Saturday, 24 March.