Matthew Weiner talks to A.M. Homes about 'Mad Men.'
Credit:
Jori Klein/The New York Public Library
Fans of "Mad Men" packed the New York Public Library Wednesday
night to hear creator Matthew Weiner in his last conversation about
the show, at least for the foreseeable future.
Seducing
Stangers
"Don likes strangers," Mr. Weiner said during the appearance, an
interview with novelist A.M. Homes. "Don likes winning strangers
over. He likes seducing strangers. And that's what advertising is.
You're going to walk down the side of the road, and now we know
each other."
"And once you get to know him, he doesn't like you," Mr. Weiner
said. (That's why Don abruptly married Megan over Faye, Mr. Weiner
said, referring to a prior workplace romance who had gotten to know
Don and his family over time.)
The Finale
On taking his lead character to California one last time as the
series approached its end, separating him from the rest of the cast
in the process, Mr. Weiner said he had wanted to see Don on his
own. "I want to see Don out there... where Don comes to town and
can be anybody," Mr. Weiner said. "He's on the run. He's definitely
a fugitive of his life."
Don begins finally returning to himself at a retreat where a man
named Leonard describes feeling completely invisible, and his dream
of being stranded, always unchosen, on a shelf inside a
refrigerator.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm) hugs Leonard (Evan Arnold) in the final episode.
To play the part of Leonard, Mr. Weiner said he told the casting
director, "I need someone who's not famous and can cry." The first
person who read for the part, the character actor Evan Arnold, got
the role. The show's costume designer, Janie Bryant, put Mr. Arnold
in an "invisible sweater," and the forgotten-father character came
to life on the screen, eventually sobbing and breaking Don out of
his own stupor in the process.
That Famous Coke Ad
Plenty of viewers perceived something nearly sinister in
Coca-Cola's "Hilltop" commercial when it closed out the series,
seeing Don's seeming enlightenment juxtaposed with an ad
appropriating the peace-and-love movement to hawk sugar water.
Mr. Weiner said "Hilltop" deserves more credit than that, and
that viewers today are too cynical.
"I don't think there's enough empathy in the world," Mr. Weiner
said. "It disappears."
People who find the ad corny might also be missing out on the
historical context, Mr. Weiner suggested. "Five years before that,
black people and white people couldn't even be in an ad together,"
he said.
Joan as Icon
Joan Holloway closed out the series threatening to bring justice to
McCann via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, raising a
child on her own and later starting her own production company.
"I didn't know Joan was a main character until I met Christina
Hendricks," Mr. Weiner said. "I didn't know Joan, and I definitely
didn't think Joan would end up this single mom, a feminist looking
for childcare."
Joan's feminist choices weren't driven by philosophy. "This
woman made a practical decision not to take shit anymore," he
said.
Whack-a-Mole of Emotions
One of Don's defining qualities throughout the series was a
refusal to talk about his feelings, which Mr. Weiner compared to a
game of whack-a-mole game. in which, when Don suppressed an
emotion, something would come to the surface in another way,
usually through womanizing or drinking.
Dramatic Irony
When Don succeeded in work, his marriage often took a hit. After
he used Betty as an example of the target audience in a Heineken
pitch, she became upset and felt embarrassed. Later in the episode,
she tells Don not to come home. "You can have the physical
experience of knowing that he just ruined his marriage because he's
so good at his job," Mr. Weiner said.
Literary Inspiration
Mr. Weiner said he read journals, including those of John
Cheever, as well as Michel Houellebecq's "The Elementary
Particles," Fairfax Cone's "The Blue Streak: Some Observations,
Mostly about Advertising" and classic literature for
inspiration.
In other revelations, Mr. Weiner said:
By the end of season four, Mr. Weiner knew Betty Draper would
die of cancer.
Mr. Weiner hadn't known Peggy and Stan would end up
together.
If he ever does a show with Netflix, Mr. Weiner wants a deal
where episodes would be staggered out so people could have a shared
experience while watching the show, as opposed to
binge-watching.
"I can't believe this happened, and I'm so grateful we got to do
it, and we were allowed to end it how and when we wanted to," Mr.
Weiner said. "I wanted it to feel that there was a vision and a
point to the entire thing."