Hypable spoke with Mad Men stars Jon Hamm, John Slattery, and creator Matthew Wiener about final days, what they kept from the set, and what’s next!

Just over a week to go before Mad Men begins the final countdown of the series. For the past seven years, Mad Men served as a spring staple on AMC. It was the first scripted series the network took a chance on, leading to the eventual pick up of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and others. The series about an advertising agency in 1960s New York City is a ratings juggernaut. It inspires weekly conversations not only about the fashion, but crazy conspiracy theories for where the show is going to go next.

Hypable had the opportunity to participate on conference calls with Jon Hamm, John Slattery, and Matthew Weiner who answered, to the best of their ability, what it is like to end a series that survived and thrived in a changing television landscape.

Matthew Weiner talks season one, key takeaways, and lawnmowers

A strong opening season is something that can make a show, but it can also be what breaks a show. After season one of Mad Men brought Don Draper into the world, Weiner admits that season 2, and beyond, tested his story telling chops. Weiner says, “Of course, things became harder as the show went on because we were committed to not repeating ourselves and you don’t want to tell the same story over and over again and eventually things — would get deep into a story and realize that we’d already done it and throw it out.”

But the joy of writing Don Draper never wavered. “Writing Don has always been a pleasure… If there was anything hard about writing Don it was the fact that he is alternately an extremely eloquent character and a man of few words.” Speaking to that, Weiner comments that is was not always easy to get the focus to be on Don, especially when he was not speaking.

Weiner says, “Training the directors to understand that Don’s reactions were as important as his lines. That Jon was always doing it, but early on, people were like, they really paid attention to whoever’s talking and I kept saying, this is Don’s scene.”

Just how did Weiner know that Jon Hamm was Don Draper? It was a combination of looking the unknown in the face and seeing the future unfold. “He understood the material, he wasn’t playing the period, he had made it part of himself — I had never met him before but I could tell that there was some integrity to the way he was delivering it and he projected a conscious,” Weiner says of meeting Hamm. Being unknown back in 2007 had its perks. Audiences were not seeing an actor playing Don Draper. They were instead meeting Don Draper for the first time.

The unknown is explored in another key moment from the series, the lawnmower in the office. “It required a lot of preparation, but Lesli Glatter [director] told them that she was going to spray them with this stuff that was supposedly coming out of the lawnmower. That is pieces of foot and shoe, et cetera, and sock, and blood… So the actors were sitting there having their scene and she said, one, two, and then it went off, instead of three, and that’s why she got that great look of surprise.”

One thing that is not a surprise is that the series is coming to an end. So when Hypable asked what Weiner’s one key takeaway from running a series of this magnitude for so long is, the show runner let us in on one major one — patience.

Weiner says, “Patience, patience with everything. There are things like you are living with the problems of the story and the script and budget and everything every day, and once it’s worked out a few times, you start to say, ‘I don’t know how this is going to work out.’ It’s going to be ok. It’s going to work out.” It’s not just behind the scenes action that requires patience, pressure also mounts when it comes time to call “Action!”

Weiner continues, “That comes with watching an actor perform a scene that you might want a different way, that comes with battling a script that you don’t like for a long time, it comes with editing, everything. Patience and having great people working for you who are really better at their job then you are at their job. That patience, and in a way trust, is the thing that I really — it took me a while to figure out and I’ve never been relaxed about any of it. I’ve never let down, but I’ve definitely started to say, ‘tomorrow this might be better.'”

On the next page: Slattery and Hamm share their thoughts on saying goodbye to ‘Mad Men’

John Slattery takes a memento and explains why television is the place to be

Surviver of two heart attacks and one insane LSD trip, John Slattery’s Roger Sterling has been through it all on Mad Men. So what did the show’s resident silver fox learn over the years?

Slattery says, “I think he’s learned that it isn’t over until it’s over. I think there were moments of personal and professional crisis over the course of the period of time that we’ve been with these people…They’ve had progression and digression and I think at the end, I think what Roger’s come away with is life with worth living. And, it is in fact, finite. And he’s going to get the most out of it while he’s here.”

While Slattery has acted through some of the series’ most memorable episodes, he notes that the seven episodes coming up contain some of his favorite moments in the show’s run. “I think just in terms of where these characters have all come from and how informed they are by what they’ve been through and then going into these last seven episodes, I think they could be in fact the most satisfying in the course of the show. So, I’m looking forward to it,” says Slattery.

Mad Men entered television as the Sopranos was waving goodbye to Tony and the plate of onion rings. Television was changing and the creators and members of the Mad Men crew were taking notice. “I think Mad Men came along where you could save episodes. The DVR kind of happened at that point and I think that was instrumental, at least partially, to the success of the show and you kind of binge watch, which obviously everyone does now,” Slattery says. Not only was technology changing, but the content was as well.

Slattery notes, “It’s funny. I think there’s so much darker content available on television than there is in the movies. Now, you go to the movies and you’d see Spider Man and Iron Man, and you look to television for sophisticated adult storytelling.” He goes on to say the words every network executive is dying to hear, “I’m happy to be in television. I’m looking for another kind of long form narrative, you can dig into — the sort of hidden corners of characters and stories and relationships. And, I think television is kind of where it’s at.”

As for what he took away from the set, plenty of memories we are sure, but he also has one memento to look at. “I took the desk lamp from my office, from Roger’s office. They knew I was going to. Every time I would go into a scene, I would take these little (memo notes) stickies, and put property of me on all kinds of stuff for years.”

On the next page: Hamm humbly discusses what he brought to Don and what lies beyond ‘Mad Men’

Jon Hamm discusses comedy, directing, and being Don Draper

Don Draper took Jon Hamm from someone you may recognize, to an icon in the television world. For the past six and half seasons, Don Draper has taken us to his personal hell and back again.

Hamm, much like Weiner and Slattery, agrees that Mad Men entered the television landscape at just the right time. Hamm says, “[Mad Men] was kind of co-existing with and on the backs of shows like the Sopranos and The Shield and Deadwood and these really, I wouldn’t want to call them experimental, but at least highly character driven stories that were driven much more by character than genre.”

Getting in on the ground floor of AMC’s scripted television market didn’t hurt the series either. Hamm goes on to say, “I think we landed right in this really wonderful sweet spot and honestly we have landed it at the right place with AMC. They gambled big and they won and we won.”

Playing Don Draper for so long has given Hamm plenty of opportunities to throw a number of things into the character along the way. When asked what his favorite tick or mannerism he gave to Draper was, Hamm politely backed away from giving himself any credit for anything Don Draper became. But he does acknowledge two Don Draper quirks saying, “My favorite [Internet supercut] is just me saying, ‘what?’ Which I think Matt [Weiner] must really like the way I say the word, ‘what,’ because he writes it for me to say an awful lot. And I know Matt has a real love for the way I do business. And I don’t mean do business in a work sense but the way I handle props.”

Though he calls those two tricks “a pretty lame bag of tricks,” they are still a part of what makes Don Draper, Don Draper. Viewers can attest that while those tricks are great, Don Draper is a far more complicated character. Hamm agrees as he responds to why people still find ways to root for Don after all these years. Hamm says, “But I hope that my portrayal of what is a wonderfully written character, flushes out that side. And hopefully it is something that the audience can identify with. But at least as you say find some sort of empathy or sympathy.”

With the final seven episodes upon us, Hamm is no stranger to getting asked where the end of the series will find Don. He does not understand the appeal of finding out the end before you have all the facts. He says, “I don’t like to read the last page of a novel first. I like to read the whole story and hopefully the novel will keep my attention and keep my interest all the way through.” That’s what he hopes Mad Men is doing.

After seven years playing the most serious guy on television, Hamm has taken a few spins in the comedy lane to balance things out. Between 30 Rock, Bridesmaids, and his most recent stint on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Hamm may be dipping his toe in the comedy waters, but he is not going to give up dramas any time soon.

“I don’t enjoy one over the other. Look, as a struggling actor in the late ’90s in LA, I would have happily taken the part of a dancing slice of pizza to pay the rent! I have gotten the chance to work with some of the funniest people on the planet multiple times. And also my day job is a pretty compelling piece of work too. I really do appreciate both sides of it. Because I certainly know the alternative I guess and this is better than that,” Hamm says.

For how he chooses what projects he will be a part of, that is easy. Hamm says, “Obviously there are other considerations at work but mostly I have been able to work with fun people who are very talented whose work I respect. And if that is the case then I really don’t care how big or little the part is I just I am glad to be a part of it.”

Looking beyond Mad Men, Hypable has the chance to ask if Hamm saw anymore behind the camera work in his future after directing two episodes of the series and producing A Young Doctor’s Notebook. Hamm responded saying, “I don’t necessarily know. Directing television is very different skill set than directing features and directing other things. Your job basically is to not get in the way and mess it up. And I have understood that very, very intuitively when I came in and directed Mad Men…I thought that it might be something fun to do just because there are so many shows on television that I love. But, the downside is, if you do mess it up then it is your name on it. I will never say never either way.”

Finally to wrap up his time on Mad Men Hamm has nothing but fond memories and great appreciation for the world that took the show in and gave Don Draper and company the chance to thrive. Hamm says, “For me, which is really all I can say, it was an incredibly meaningful, creative experience.”

Watch the final episodes of Mad Men season 7, episode 8, “The End of an Era,” Sunday, April 5, at 10:00 p.m. ET on AMC.