Sepinwall on TV: 'Mad Men' season two preview

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on July 27, 2008 at 5:23 AM, updated August 14, 2009 at 11:12 AM

LOS ANGELES - The ashtrays at Sterling-Cooper are full.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who watched the first season of AMC's "Mad Men," in which the executives who work at this fictional early '60s ad agency drink, eat, have sex and, especially, smoke to excess. But it's still startling, in 2008, to witness the mountain of half-smoked cigarette butts in one of the many ashtrays that ring the set in the show's studio.

It even troubles the "Mad Men" production team, albeit for different reasons.

"Sometimes they kind of bug me because they're messy," says the show's set decorator, Amy Wells. "We have these long discussions about how many cigarettes they would really allow to be left, and they go, 'Well, if you're smoking so many packs a day, and if you have this many people smoking...' and I go, 'Yeah, but they would clean out the ashtray!'"

That kind of argument isn't uncommon on the "Mad Men" set, where the production team sweats every detail in order to create the world of Sterling-Cooper and its people.

"There's a lot of fetishism about the props and the wardrobe," acknowledges producer Scott Hornbacher. "There's a lot of stressing and angsting and gnashing of teeth as people try to find and make these things."

"These things" range from the sets and costumes to the knick-knacks you might find on the desk of protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm) or the hairstyle worn by vampy office manager Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks).

"Mad Men" creator Matt Weiner, like Hornbacher, used to work on "The Sopranos," and he inherited his old boss' obsession with getting the littlest details right. David Chase was famous for knowing exactly what he wanted for every character, and Weiner is the same on "Mad Men."

Weiner likes to refer to the show as "about time travel," and will have involved debates with his crew about how a particular set or prop or outfit should look to capture the spirit of the period and the characters.

And he's more than willing to concede the argument.

He wanted the Draper home decorated entirely with old-fashioned colonial furniture, because Betty was obsessed with status. Wells brought in an azure blue, far more modern (for the period) headboard.

"I thought, 'I don't know, this is so extreme,'" Weiner recalls. "And she said, 'Listen to me: Betty Draper's bedroom is very important to her. This is not a frigid woman. This matters to her - and January will look amazing against it.'"

The headboard stayed.

The series' pilot episode kept Don's marital status a secret until the final scene. Weiner had wanted to show Don using a golf-themed bar set at the office. Bob Shaw, who worked as production designer on the pilot (Dan Bishop succeeded him for the rest of the series) argued that it would give away the secret, since a man would only have that set if he got it as a Father's Day gift. The bar set got scrapped.

"He gets very very specific," says Wells, "and then it becomes like a scavenger hunt. This is one big scavenger hunt. This switch goes on and we're running and running to find it."

Wells and property master Gay Perello spend a lot of each day cruising second-hand stores, estate sales and, when necessarily, online auctions to find the right pieces of this world. When a script mentioned that Don's wife Betty (January Jones) made a call on a Princess phone, Wells struggled to find a period-appropriate model, and eventually resorted to eBay.

Sometimes, the crew resorts to bringing in their own props. A first season episode featured newlywed Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) trying to unload a Chip 'N Dip he got as a wedding gift because he found it emasculating. Shows generally try to have duplicates of every prop in case one breaks. But Weiner insisted on using the one his mother got on her own wedding day and risk that problem, because he knew it would get a laugh.

"A lot of writers are frustrated property masters," he says. "When you write a prop in there, you're either writing in something you have or something you've seen."

The costumes, arguably the first thing viewers notice when they watch the series, get equal attention.

"My discussions with Matt are about where (each character) comes from," explains costume designer Janie Bryant, "what's their background. I'll take that and go prep for that character, have my fittings, cut up the pictures and discuss the pictures. There is a lot of creative freedom."

The actors - particularly the women, who have to be strapped into uncomfortable foundation garments for each episode - find the period costumes, some of them found in thrift shops, some of them designed and made by Bryant and her team, invaluable in getting into character.

"I think it helps a lot," says Christina Hendricks. "Putting on Joan's outfits, it's like all of a sudden I'm Joan. I don't dress like that normally, but I really should, because it's sort of fabulous. You put on the hair and the makeup and you do feel different."

Some of this devotion to detail goes unnoticed by viewers - Perello laments the many found objects that show up in the background of a scene for a second or less - but never to the performers.

"When there's a level of realism and believability, that makes it easier for them," says Hornbacher. "I think our actors really care if our props are right. If Jon Hamm gets handed a glass that he thinks is the wrong glass for Don Draper to be drinking out of, he'll say it. It's not an egotistical thing - 'Well, I as Don Draper wouldn't do that!' - but a level of care and perfectionism on his part about how accurate the show should be. It makes a difference, what they're holding in their hand."

"It's absolutely important," agrees Jon Hamm. "This is a world I didn't live in, and so all the details matter, and help me feel grounded in that world."

The actors also can't help notice the crew's enthusiasm, bordering on mania, for finding the right outfit, or cigarette case, or candy wrapper.

"Janie just gets very excited about putting on the little belt, and the little buttons and all these specific details," says Hendricks, "and then she'll put it on me and go, 'Christina!!!!!' She gets really excited about every little detail. It makes it fun to do fittings with her."

Admittedly, the enthusiasm can go too far at times.

"I have an assistant who will not let me open up old packages," says Gay Perello. "I'm like, 'Brian, I need to open up the Dixie Cups!' And he goes, 'Nooo!!! You can't disturb the packaging!'"

And there's always a concern that all these details shouldn't overwhelm what's really important about the show.

Weiner refers to the props, costumes, etc. as "all the colors in the paint box. It's not about 'Let's make the most beautiful paint box,' but 'How do we use the makeup, the props, the clothing, the cars, to tell the story?' It's about who the characters are, where they're driving towards, what they care about. It's just like dialogue."

"All these people want their work to be invisible," says Hornbacher. "You create another reality most successfully when it's just believed. When you're watching something and going 'Oh, isn't that shot great? Isn't that an amazing tie?' - hopefully, on 'Mad Men,' that's only when you're watching an episode for the second or third time after you've already paid attention to what people are saying."

"Mad Men" (Tonight at 10 on AMC) The Emmy-nominated drama begins its second season as the staff of Sterling-Cooper deals with the complications of Valentine's Day, 1962.
