Weiner Talks 'Mad Men'
This morning's Variety has what I believe to be one of the more exhaustive discussions of "Mad Men" I've seen, and the guy doing the discussing is none other than creator Matthew Weiner. I could send you to Variety, and Kathy Lyford, who asked the questions, or keep you here, and would prefer to do the latter, but it's so long that that would be ridiculous. So here ya go... There are some good thoughtful questions here, and Weiner is clearly in an expansive mood; there's so much that I've just scanned it. But for you hardcore "Mad Men-iacs," this is a full breakfast.
My quick re-ax: No question about his deal renewal! Unimaginable, unless he set that as a pre-condition (no deal questions). I'll have a little more to say about the "Mad Men" finale in the next day or so, but here is my initial read: Sunday's wrap doesn't feel simply like a season wrap but a SERIES wrap. Really does. The overwhelming sense you (too) will have is that the producers structured this so that it could work as a series' ender - just in case AMC or Lionsgate made the unthinkable decision to pull the plug (they did not, of course) or fail to come up with the money to keep Weiner on board.
They still haven't done the latter.
Please go to the jump to find out what Matthew says about the finale...
Glad you're here! Here's a little bit of what Weiner had to say...
Q. How much of the Don Draper story did you have in mind when you wrote that spec script. And do you know now how the series ends? — Cynthia
A. I sort of know how the series ends. I don’t know if I have a very good ending to it yet but I sort of know how it ends. In terms of Don’s backstory, I had all of it. Here’s the interesting thing: I had written a movie about this character. I’d gotten to page 80 and I’d only covered a fraction of his life. It was called “The Horseshoe.” Actually the hobo story was in there, and the thing with him bringing his own body home (from the war) and a lot of his childhood and things that you’re still going to see (in the last two episodes of season 2) were in there, things you’ll find out about. And there’s way more to be mined. And on some level it was a story that imitated writers that I love - Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Irving.
And I had all of that. And when I wrote “Mad Men,” and AMC said “Where does the series go?” I went home and looked for my notes about “Mad Men” and I came across the script (for “The Horseshoe”) and started leafing through it. Now this was a script I wrote – “Mad Men” is eight years ago – this is a script I wrote eight years before that. I wrote it before I had my first job. After I got married this is what I worked on for a year. And I got to the last page of the script and it said “Ossining, 1960” and I said “Oh my God. That’s who he is.” I loved John Cheever and those writers and that’s why I picked Ossining.
I told Jon (Hamm, pictured with Weiner above) the whole story before last year started. He was the only one I told, except for the producers, of course. And I told Jon about the brother and how the genealogy works and what kind of childhood it was and where he was from. There were a lot of these people. It’s an American story. You know mountain (folks), or whatever it is, coming to New York and shedding the whole thing. That’s the American dream on some level. Even though I didn’t finish the movie I did know where it was going. And I feel lucky to have that consistency and the audience can see that it’s not just being spun as it goes along.
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