This is the end. The beginning of the end. After six years and six seasons spread across a storyline spanning almost a decade, one of the greatest television dramas of all time, Mad Men, is coming to an end. And it’s all going down with lots and lots of drama, both on set and on screen, says lead actor Jon Hamm, who plays Don Draper, the hard-drinking, chain-smoking advertising executive.
“It’s really going to be the biggest emotional challenge. I’ve talked to people on Breaking Bad and on 30 Rock and friends of mine who I’ve asked, you know, ‘God, how was it? Was it hard? I mean, are you bummed out, like you’re done, like what happens now? And they say, ‘Yes, it stinks.’ Like you’ve got to go home and you’re done and it’s a drag,” he says. “But you know, you move on and you do something else and that’s the way it goes.”
The first part of Mad Men’s penultimate season seven premiered earlier this week in the US, and its seven episodes will start airing in the UAE exclusively on MBC 4 on April 19 at midnight. The second part, also seven episodes, is scheduled for an April 2015 air date.
Created and produced by Matthew Weiner, Mad Men, set in the 1960s, has been a ratings goldmine for its network AMC in the US and has since been syndicated to many countries around the world. It’s won awards galore, become a cultural and fashion phenomenon and was recently voted one of the greatest television dramas of all time.
Hamm, a little known actor in 2007 before the series premiered, has now, along with his cast members, become a major star thanks to his role. While excited, he says he has no immediate plans or roles lined up.
“I’m very aware that I’m going to be unemployed very soon,” he laughs. “I don’t know what the future holds honestly. It’s a brave new world out there. “You know, I’m not as prolific as some of my other castmates. You look at John Slattery or Elisabeth Moss or people that have been working for decades. I’m just a lucky fool and I hope to continue that good fortune but I recognise that it’s based on other people’s talent as much as it is on mine. So I hope — I really hope to find, you know, another partner [like Weiner] in the world who I can shine with and that’s basically the way I’ve run my career since I’ve had options [and] hopefully work with people who are more talented than me and challenge me in some way.”
Excerpts from our interview:
After six seasons, what do you love and what do you hate about Don Draper and why?
Well, he’s not a very lovable guy so there’s that but I would suggest that he’s also not very hateful either. So I think that the emotions I feel toward that character are somewhere in the middle. But a very wise man told me once about acting that if you ever judge the character that you’re playing, you’re going to do it a disservice and so I try not to judge our guy Don. I just try to humanise him as much as I can and I think that that’s maybe been the biggest challenge of portraying this guy who is fairly odious in his behaviour patterns often, to just try to humanise him.
A lot of new TV shows today like Mad Men or Breaking Bad, they all deal with the decline of the patriarch. What do you think this fascination stems from?
I think first of all it’s generally an interesting narrative arc, what you deal with, with the decline. It’s a well-worn trope in storytelling honestly, you know, from the Greeks, so I think it works. But I wouldn’t load any more gender politics into it than need be but it just is what it is. We started the show with Don Draper at the top of his game and he’s certainly not in that place anymore and I think that that’s a pretty good narrative place to begin the final season.
Why do you think this is a good time to round off the series rather than keep it going for, say, another season or two?
I’ve said this about other things but I think it applies to our show as well, but I think that all good things come to an end. You know, other shows just sort of fade away or peter out. I think there’s a truism to that.
I don’t want to be on a show that overstays its welcome and I’m not interested in being on a show that just runs forever either, at least not now.
Why do you think that the show was set in the ’60s? Was it done that way to deal more openly with issues such as infidelity, sexism, homophobia and adultery?
This is probably better answered by Mr Weiner but I think that it was set in the ’60s because it’s far enough away from our current time to seem different and yet close enough to our time to seem familiar, if that makes any sense. It’s not that far away, it’s not that old-timey, we’re not Downton Abbey. It’s in the past and yet it seems so familiar to us still that we wonder how much in fact have we really changed from what is now solidly a few years ago.
After these six years, how would you say that Don Draper has changed?
It’s been six seasons of living with Mr Draper but in the timeline of the show it’s been almost nine years and I think, you know, a decade has an effect on most of our lives. Most of us aren’t the person we were a decade ago, but most of us mostly have those changes sort of professionally so I don’t know honestly. I don’t think Don has changed too much. Our favourite leopard has not changed his spots so to speak.
You created such a legacy with this character. The pressure’s going to be on you to surpass this.
I certainly don’t feel that. I don’t feel like acting is a competition in that way where it’s like, what are you going to do next and will it be better or greater. We as actors are kind of beholden to the scripts that we get honestly and hopefully I’ll be fortunate enough to work with a writer or a filmmaker or a television creator who is as creative and as talented as Mr Weiner. I owe 10 per cent of my success and career to that guy.
How do you think you’ll feel when you shoot that final episode? Are you looking forward to it? Will you be dreading it?
I won’t be dreading it but I think that I’m going to be a mess honestly. This show has taken up essentially a decade of my life and I’ve met a lot of people who I think will be friends for the rest of my life. I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and I’ve gotten to go to award shows and just experience these things that when you start down the road of being an actor, you think that’s never going to happen. So it’s been an emotional rollercoaster ride for me. So when it’s time to get off the ride, I’m going to be like, ‘I don’t want to get off, man, I want to stay on the ride. Come on, the ride’s over?’ There will be tears, there will probably be fist fights and hair-pulling and every expression of emotion that you can imagine. It will be biblical in its emotion.
Make sure that the camera’s on.
No, no, no, it’ll all be off camera.
A lot of actors draw from their personal lives. As the season progressed, how much of your personal life did you draw on for Don’s character?
Not much. I don’t have a whole huge background in advertising but I think part of the reason that Don has resonated with so many people who obviously are not in advertising or are not male or are not fathers or divorcees or so many other things that Don is, is that we can all understand being unsatisfied or having some sort of sense of longing or some sense of professional or personal dissatisfaction.
I think that’s the only thing I can really bring to it, my own life sense of striving and yearning and all of that and hopefully I do.
Are you directing an episode this season and what did you learn from your previous experiences behind the camera?
I won’t be directing this season. That was a conscious choice on my part to not do so simply because it is an exponential amount of work. It’s not merely doing two jobs. It’s more like doing like six jobs at the same time and so I decided that [] for the final season of the show I just wanted to be an actor again. I enjoyed directing, I really did. It enabled me to get a perspective on the show that was so much deeper and more interesting and more dynamic.
What do you hope Don Draper’s legacy will be in the real world?
I don’t know, honestly. I hope that people like the show. I hope that people appreciate the show, not just that it was a flash in the pan or it was this sort of moment in time, but I hope they appreciate the whole arc of the show. I really do hope people take away that this is a story of a person who in all of his faults and all of his troubles and all of his missteps, was trying to do the right thing. But, you know, we’ve all been there. So I hope people have enjoyed the ride because I certainly have.
Mad Men season seven premieres in the UAE on April 19 exclusively on MBC 4 at midnight.
