Last week UPROXX was given the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Mad Men creator Matt Weiner to talk about the show, which returns for the first half of its seventh season on April 13th. Also on the call were representatives from a handful of other media outlets that regularly cover the show. When it was our turn to speak to Matt, I asked him what he thought about the internet’s obsession with the show, specifically its penchant for theorizing what direction(s) the show is going in and what the fate of certain characters might be (such as Pete Campbell being mauled to death by a bear). Additionally, I asked how this influences writing on the show, if it all, and also quizzed Weiner on his own television-watching habits. Finally, I tried to learn a little more about why Weiner is so hyper-averse to spoilers.
So here’s the portion of the call in which I spoke directly to Weiner, followed on the second page by some highlights from the rest of the call. While being predictably evasive about some things, Weiner sounded happy, confident and excited about the final season of Mad Men. Enjoy.
UPROXX: You mentioned earlier in the call that you’re often entertained by some of the plot theories that the show’s obsessive fanbase enjoy indulging in on the internet. My personal favorite is the one of Pete Campbell being possibly mauled by a bear.
MATT WEINER: [Laughing] I didn’t hear about that one.
UPROXX: You didn’t see that one? Okay. Well that one was floating around…
MATT WEINER: [Laughing] I have to say I’m entertained. Understand that this is not like some superiority complex of, “Oh look how much I fooled them that they’re spinning out of control” or something. What this is is me seeing, you know, the imagination of the audience with the crumbs. We’re not trying to give them crumbs. We’re telling one story and they take what we say very seriously. And you’re entertained because you didn’t think of it.
UPROXX: Are there any particular theories that you’ve seen out there that you’ve been most entertained by and is it something that has now, because it’s become such a thing with Mad Men, is it something that when you guys are in the writer’s room that you’re conscious of now? Oh say something comes up and you realize that this is something that the internet is really going to take the ball and run with?
MATT WEINER: Well here’s the thing: They are all derived from the show that we’re writing but no one, and I can say very assuredly, no one in the writer’s room anticipates any of this. Or could possibly think it would make people — I’m always working as a story teller to say, well they’ll think this is going to happen but this is what’s going to happen. These particular incidents are sometimes so much beyond the tone of our show whether it involves time travel or murder, it’s just not what we do on the show. It doesn’t mean we never do it, but that was the thing that was sort of new to me, I was like this doesn’t seem like something we would do on the show. But you know, like the thing with Sharon Tate t-shirt, I wasn’t offended by it. I just thought it was interesting that that’s the idea that they drew from it. It does not affect us in the writer’s room. We have enough trouble, you know, using our imaginations for the story we’re actually telling than to sort of play chess with the imagination of the audience.
UPROXX: What TV shows are you currently watching right now and are there any shows that you sort of find yourself obsessing over in the same way that people obsess over Mad Men?
MATT WEINER: I love television and I will watch it every chance that I get, which is not that much when you’re in the middle of this job. But I also have four children and really do not have control over what I get to watch. So I, like anyone, you watch two episodes of something and it’s good, you will watch all of them. So I’m into, you know, Chopped and Project Runway and, because I have four boys, I have seen more Dr. Who than most people can imagine. You know I judge them sometimes, there are good ones and bad ones. But I can get into anything. I mean, the last time I really had a chunk of time I binged watched two seasons of Downton Abbey. I haven’t seen True Detective yet, but I will. I watch Boardwalk Empire whenever I can. I saw all of Orange is the New Black that came on in the off season. I love that show. But you know what happens is the writers will start watching things and we kind of can’t talk about them around me ’cause I want to eventually see them.
UPROXX: Are you someone who loves being surprised and loves surprising other people and is that part of the reason that you are so insistent and go to such great lengths to avoid anything with Mad Men being spoiled for the audience in any way?
MATT WEINER: That is definitely a big part of it. And part of it was being on The Sopranos. I mean, how much fun it was before this whole machinery of spoilers was even in operation to say, you’re going to sit down and you have no idea what’s going to happen. You get people’s full attention. You can create tension and, even more importantly for our show because the plots are not told in extremes, they’re happening on a very human scale. So Don forgetting to pick Sally up at school is a big story point. And if you tell these things they’re really, I worry that it will be boring. So I love to be surprised. I love the fact that we have a unique position commercially that’s being something that you just don’t know what’s going to happen when you sit down. And yeah, I mean, you know, I can tell you when I watch trailers for movies, knowing the entire story that’s in the movie is disappointing to me. There’s a big marketing debate about that. That people will only see things that are already familiar to them. And for me when I get to a movie that I’ve seen the trailer of and all the jokes were in the trailer, I feel let down. Like I thought that was just a taste of it. I didn’t know that was all of it…But people are interested in the show and I’m grateful for that. But I feel like I am, you know, every show doesn’t have to do it this way and if I do another show, I may not do it this way. But I felt for this show and the scale we’re telling it on, what a great commercial angle it is to have a show where people are going to be surprised and there’s very little out there like that in entertainment and ever actually. It’s just not just something–you see how hard it is to do.
Below I’ve collected some of the more interesting things Weiner revealed on the hour and twenty minute call.
Weiner on what his overall plan for the show is this year…
The plan is that we can continue to tell the story and we definitely had a finale last year that was hard on, certainly on Don. But some good in his life at the end of that finale. So the plan is to continue to tell the story. I mean drama is, you know, I didn’t make this up. But drama is made out of conflict and people’s lives being good is never good drama. So we’re always looking for more problems for these people.
…
Yes and it’s really a theme that goes for the entire last season even with that separation, which is about the consequences in life and if change is possible. And the things in your life that you can change or not change when your needs are met, you start thinking about other things. There’s a real growth from over the course of this last season from what are the material concerns of your life to the immaterial concerns of your life. That’s really what the ending of the show is about.
Weiner on where he is in the process of writing the show’s final episodes…
I have finished writing the first eight scripts, which is seven, oh nine scripts actually. So there are five more to finish and just the writing of, just the drafts, which means we’re still breaking stories for them. But we have a pretty clear roadmap. It’s just, you know, you write something on the board like, you know, the agencies merge. You know that’s what’s going to happen, last season, but what the actual story is, we haven’t done that part yet…There are things that we will not be able to do. And you know I think that because I’m surrounded by such talented writers I think that everything that is really good or that I really have faith in will get through and everything that we as a group have to say will get through. But you know I don’t know, I mean it’s such a mysterious process. When I heard people’s theory’s about Bob Benson last year I was like, wow, maybe we didn’t work hard enough to make that more interesting.
Weiner on the evolution of Pete Campbell…
Pete has very good politics, I think. And I don’t mean just that he’s like a liberal or something like that. I think Pete is truly in the seat of the underdog and he hates injustice. And it may be because he’s been treated badly in his life or because of his parents. He does not believe in, he’s not a racist. And I actually think it’s part of the tradition of New York City to some degree because it is, even talking about all these periods of segregation and the civil rights movement, New York City, I’m not saying it’s segregated, but it has a very different attitude. There is a slightly idealized fate and it comes from the upper class where they provided, you know, before the income tax, they provided opportunities, colleges, things like that, for people to make advancement. The Rockefellers created Spellman College. There was a commitment to equality and to the constitution. And I think Pete both the way he was raised and for personal reasons always comes down on the right side of these things, on the human side of these things. He’s selfish and petty and bitter for no reason and doesn’t appreciate what he has, but he very clearly is not a racist and he’s offended by it.
Weiner was particularly evasive when asked about what’s in store for Peggy this season…
I don’t want to talk about what Peggy’s story is at all. All I will say is that Peggy’s story is a constant mix between what is good for Peggy as a person and what is good for Peggy’s career and they have not gone together at all. And I think she only knows how to pay attention to her job and that that may become her story for the season.
On the challenges of keeping a large cast relevant throughout the run of the show…
I’m playing with this orchestra and the writers and I are trying to weave people in and out. But the interesting thing about these last 14 episodes is the main characters have really surfaced to the top and we’re trying to service them in the interest of ending the series…The most difficult thing has been juggling all of these characters and trying to keep the story interesting. We have pictures of each character, recurring characters in the show, over the chalk board/white board in the writer’s room. And there are 20 of them now. And I’m looking at it and I look at the writers and I’m like, “We created all these characters!” They can all be in all of it but how great is it to have to not isolate the main characters that way and to not know who the story is going to be about every week. But as it is, these last 14 we’ve really had to focus on the main characters because, I don’t know, I feel like to get everything where I want it when it’s over it required it.
On the evolution of Joan…
Joan has definitely changed a lot…We’ve see her choosing to have a child, having the strength to get out of her marriage which was, you know, never good but was a fantasy marriage. I think the thing that’s happened the most to Joan is that she stops caring a little bit about how things look. And women of that generation, and maybe today too, men as well, but they were really raised that that was the most important thing. And so, you know, how does Betty Draper marry Don Draper? You check off a bunch of boxes, right? So all of these flaws are ignored. And I think Joan we see expressing her desire to take advantage of the bad things that have happened and make the best out of them. And also to be a little bit more of her own person. I mean she started the show with a very clear philosophy, which is have a lot of fun and, you know, we’ve all loved her sexual confidence. Have a lot of fun and then find a husband and get married and have children and move to the country. We see now that her interests are very different than that now.
On the decision to break the final season into two parts…
Well, first of all it was not my idea. But there seems to be a problem with saying that without sounding critical of it. I mean, honestly, 92 episodes into the show, anything that sort of breaks up the pattern and gives me a new challenge is very exciting. Not that it’s not challenging enough to end a show. I’ve never done that before. And the other thing is that they had success doing with this Breaking Bad. I don’t even know if they did it willingly with Breaking Bad. I think they had to because of the schedule. But it was so good for the growth of the show and for the way that the ending was received. So I wasn’t going to argue with that. That’s not my job, believe it or not. It’s been a challenge. We did not have a big break in between. I’m writing and shooting this straight through and it’s something new. I’m not someone who is afraid of that.
On changing the setting a bit this coming season by moving much of the action to California…
Well you know the place is one of your tools as a writer. So when you talk about someone going any place new, especially west in the United States, you’re talking about the frontier, you’re talking about an opportunity to reinvent yourself, you’re talking about better weather. All of those things can be, you’re talking about opportunity and that was where we kind of left off in the finale last year. The challenge is to say who does that work for and who doesn’t it work for. The amount of people that move to Hawaii after they’ve been there on vacation and then realize that they have island fever and they’re homesick, you know, it doesn’t always work out, the fantasy versus the reality. You know for me it’s just interesting because it means one thing to Don and I don’t know if it means everything to the country, but it did at that time. It was what New York was in 1960. It was the number one destination in the imaginations of Americans as a place desirable to live that was filled with glamour and opportunity. And, you know, that’s part of the story we’re telling.
On what has come from setting the show in the world of advertising in the 1960s…
It’s been a gift. It’s been a great environment. It’s been great to sort of investigate all the personalities of the workplace because they’re all there in an advertising agency whether it’s people who have the commercial concerns, people who have the creative concerns, the overlap of those two things. Just what happened to advertising in this period as a business and it’s relationship with the culture. It has yielded more fruit than I thought it would. I mean it’s the kind of thing where literally every time I would think about something that was going on either in my own life or the writer’s lives that we wanted to tell a story about, we would be able to find something in the advertising world that could support that story. You know I didn’t set out to make a show about advertising and on some level it really isn’t, but as an environment to tell the story, it’s just the idea of how important buying things is and selling things as an American past time, an identity. I mean, living through the last eight years of what’s happened economically in this country, what a great chance to talk about just the forensics of American business. So I was very lucky to find it and to bond with it in some way and find people who understood it and use it as an environment to tell the story. And apparently traditionally it doesn’t work that often. So that was even more of a miracle.
On using the big, historical events of the era to shape the direction of the show…
It’s been different each season…I try and make every episode a month apart from each other and we pick a time of year for it to start or end. Sometimes you miss the big event. But I never wanted it to be a history lesson. And it was an education for me the first season of the show where the Nixon/Kennedy 1960 election played a big role in it, which I picked because I had lived through the Bush/Gore election and I thought it was a great reference point.
