1/22/2024 0 Comments Premiere rush ze frameThe last scene is this character taking Don’s name and leaving his body at a train station. It was called The Horseshoe, and I abandoned it five years before I wrote Mad Men. Weiner So I told I had this 85-page screenplay that was Don Draper’s backstory. Wayne We said to Matt, “OK, this is a great show about advertising, but what are people going to talk about week in, week out? What’s the bigger story for Don?” He went off, and a few months later he came back and pitched the entire Dick Whitman/Don Draper story. We had only one or two notes that were key. Sorcher Matt had an extremely clear vision for the show. Weiner shoots the pilot on location in New York in 2006, but AMC struggles initially to line up financing. Weiner Alison Brie was a big lesson because we couldn’t afford to make her a series regular. I could totally be his 1960s wife.” Couples kind of looked alike then. My agents aren’t delusional enough to think that I’m a Don Draper.Īlison Brie (Trudy Campbell) I looked up a picture of Vincent Kartheiser and was like, “Oh my God. Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell) I only auditioned for Pete. And all of sudden, I need a scene by tomorrow for a character who only has three lines. Weiner It had been years since I wrote anything in the pilot. Matt said, “Well, there’s another role, but I don’t really know what’s going to happen with her.” He didn’t have any scenes for me, so he quickly wrote a couple. January Jones (Betty Draper) I came in for Peggy twice. Are you crazy? You’re not going to make money for us …” I thought it was a little impatient of them. The was like, “It’s on AMC, it’s a period piece, it’s never going to go. The one person who was an early champion of mine was Matthew.Ĭhristina Hendricks (Joan Holloway) I was up for another pilot, and I chose Mad Men. Jon Hamm (Don Draper) Some people went in once and got cast there was a little more reticence with me. My theory was that The Sopranos casting was great because you didn’t know who any of those people were. But at a certain point, it was working against them. The guys from That ’70s Show came in - not Ashton, but the other guys. Weiner There were famous people who came in to read. Weiner and AMC agree on hiring unknown actors. We used all of their crew.Ĭasting for the pilot begins in 2006. The pilot cost $3.3 million, and we did it in New York in the downtime when Sopranos was. Wayne So we self-financed the whole thing ourselves. Jeremy Elice (former vp original programming, AMC) We sent it out looking for potential partners and got some nice responses, but generally speaking it was, “Yeah, not for us,” and “Who the f- is AMC?” Sorcher Every possible reason on paper why this should not work was cited: It’s super slow, it’s advertising, everybody smokes, everybody’s unlikable and it’s period. It’s really low status, no money, and even if they do it, they’ve never made a show before, and you don’t want to be their first one.” I know you love this project, but don’t go. Weiner were like, “You’re going to be coming off The Sopranos. He called me after and said, “Thank God I’d never read this because I never would have written Mad Men.” When we had lunch with Matt for the first time, I gave him the book. This was a way to do Revolutionary Road, week in, week out. But I was a nobody screenwriter, and held out for bigger fish, which they got with Sam Mendes. So I hire Christina Wayne, who’s never done a thing in her life in terms of an executive.Ĭhristina Wayne (former senior vp scripted programming, AMC) Years earlier, I’d wanted to option Revolutionary Road. So your strategy becomes: Let’s go for quality. You want something that can’t be replicated elsewhere - like a Sopranos - because if you have a signature show, then you won’t be dropped. It’s like the lesser TCM, and I’m supposed to turn it into something. Rob Sorcher (former executive vp programming and production, AMC) I’d relocated to the East Coast, and I’m working at this network, AMC, that has a collection of shit-ass movies.
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