Two of my favorite things in the world are dudes with big huge mountain man beards and hilarious fake mustache shenanigans, so this story is so squarely inside my wheelhouse that I might have to start charging it rent. GQ interviewed Jay Ferguson (who plays Stan Rizzo on Mad Men) and asked him a ton of questions about his character’s tremendous beard. Here are the main takeaways: 1) He shaved it off after the season ended (BOOOOOOOOOOO), and 2) GINSBERG’S MUSTACHE IS FAKE.
GQ: Ben Feldman (who plays Michael Ginsberg) told me that your beard was the hardest thing for him to get used to this season.
Jay Ferguson: Well, if we’re being honest: for Ben specifically, the hardest thing for him to get used to was not being allowed to smile. A couple times in the beginning of the season, when he laughed, his mustache would fall off. So he developed an involuntary reaction he would have to himself smiling, which was to instantly throw his thumb and forefinger up to either side of his fake mustache to hold it on. It was a fun running gag all season long, how we were all trying to make him crack up and laugh, because he’d have to do this stupid thing where he held his mustache on and didn’t laugh. And then one night we were out somewhere at some party together [laughs] and I said something that made him laugh, and I caught him doing it. I said, “Did you just try to hold your mustache on? You don’t even have it on, pal! It’s the weekend!”
If there’s not a gag reel on the DVDs for this season that’s full of Ginsberg’s mustache half falling off during important scenes like he’s an Italian waiter in an SNL sketch, I will be furious.
