I got off the phone with Elisabeth about three hours ago. It was a difficult call because her phone kept cutting us off and my recorder’s batteries died. And the spare batteries died. So there was that. I type 90 wpm so I switched to dictation. But I can’t finish transcribing the interview until I get fresh batteries in order to get the data off the recorder and onto my hard drive.
Until then, there’s one question we’ve been discussing all week, and that’s Peggy’s confrontation with Don, so here’s Elisabeth Moss’s take on that very scene:
Deborah Lipp: Okay, there was that really ugly confrontation in Seven Twenty Three. First, what was it like working with Jon [Hamm] on that?
Elisabeth Moss: That’s a great scene. Jon Hamm is a brilliant actor, and he’s the nicest guy in the world, and so funny and goofy, but of course he is a brilliant actor, so he can turn it off and be terrifying. Don Draper yelling at you is a scary experience. [Anyone would be scared.] We fall into our roles easily, and he knows how to upset Peggy, and Peggy knows how to get under his skin. I kind of love doing the angry scenes with Don [they're so meaty] and that was a great one.
DL: I had such a strong emotional reaction. I was so mad at Don that my stomach was in a knot.
EM: Well, thank you.
DL: Some of our readers argue that Peggy deserved it, that Don was right, but my feeling is he was cruel.
EM: I think it was pretty simple. In that moment, he was cruel. He was being mean. I don’t think there’s any finesse about it, he’s being mean to her.
You can’t just keep having Don being her champion, and helping her and holding her [up]. The same thing that happened in season one, with Joan and Peggy; they’re not going to become best friends, is happening in season three with Don & Peggy; [he's flawed, he has a temper], he’s not perfect.
40 Responses to “Elisabeth Moss: Exclusive interview excerpt!”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I heart her.
Technology gets in the way sometimes. But it brings me Mad Men, so I shouldn't complain too much.
I've already announced that I'm on 'Team Peggy"
…and I'm very excited to to hear there's an interview forthcoming.
woot!
Tip o' the hat to the Lipp Sisters and Ms. Moss. ~
I dont know that those of us who said that Peggy deserved Don's reaction meant that he wasnt cruel. He *was* cruel but he was also right.
Can't wait to see the rest of this once the machines all play nice. I generally root for Peggy.
I do have to agree with Barbara though. Yes, Don was cruel, no one said that he didn't fly off the handle inappropriately, but he did have a point. There was precedent for this type of behavior. Don has often been cuttingly cruel to the staff at SC. He lashes out.
I love Elisabeth and have loved her since she was a non-bangled Zoey Bartlett. Thank you for the interview!
I subscribe to Barbara's objection over our arguing that Peggy deserved to be treated cruelly. She didn't and we didn't say that. I'm rehashing from another thread…
Pete’s a dick and Don knows he’s a dick and chews him out just the same, he's gruff to him and the message is esentially similar: "Work hard and prove your worth and then come to me with your entitlement!", but here’s the thing: he doesn’t expect to respect Pete.
I had nothing but respect for Peggy when she got promoted or when she gathered the courage to ask Roger for Freddy’s old office. I can respect her for asking for a raise she probably deserves, but the way in which she did it, caressing the bootie and trying to be manipulative and sneaking under her daddy figure’s skin twice in the space of a few days loses her respect points with me and obviously with Don as well. I can’t hold her to the same standards as Pete and neither does he. She’s better than Pete and “I wantIwantIwantIwantIwant and I want it NOOOOOW before I even turn 24 so instead of hard work I’ll rely on manipulation/(emotional) blackmail†looks just as petulant on her as it does on him. She’s just less slimy about it.
Did you guys ever get cleared to post the story about your set visit? Or has it already been posted and I missed it…? LOL
JS, we're still waiting. We signed confidentiality agreements so we have to wait. I really have to write up the following day, too.
I have to disagree that Peggy is relying on manipulation instead of hard work. Remember, she asked for a raise **because she was being paid less than men doing the same job — which is ethically wrong, and thank god, as of the recent passage of the federal equal pay act, was also illegal!**
And by asking to be put on the Hilton account she was asking for more work, and harder and more important work. I fail to see how that puts her in the wrong in any way.
In my eyes, Don's response to both her requests was just flat-out wrong. Unless (with regard to the Hilton request) he doesn't think her work is good enough to work on that account. But we have seen no evidence of that.
Great timely piece and look forward to reading in full. She is an amazing talent.
Don was mean and Peggy didn't deserve it. I think she had the poor timing of approaching Don just after he was smacked down by Roger. Often people notice in others the things they don't like about themselves. S-C management has been telling Don that he's acting ungrateful (which he probably believes to a point). So, now Don is projecting this onto Peggy.
I dont know where to ask a general question so I will try here. Can I access the comments to the recap or any article about The Mountain King?
As long as we're asking off-topic questions, something that would be really cool would be to put the date the episode takes place in the recap (under schedule date), so it would be easy to follow the story's chronology. eg, "Friday July 19- Tuesday July 23, 1963."
gypsy, the dates are all there, under "full recap." Sometimes the explanation of why they take place when they do (e.g. how we pinpointed the dates) takes up a lot of space, so we haven't moved them to the front list. It's a thought, though.
gah, I meant under "original air date"
OK, I still do not understand why some commenters think that Peggy deserved it. Those of you who think she did should have to demonstrate why Peggy deserved the cruel dressing down she got vs the mild rebuke that Pete got for essentially asking the same thing.
My contention is that he tore into her because he felt like a trapped animal after Roger's visit and he projected his insecurity and self-loathing onto Peggy. That's what I saw and what I have gleaned from Peggy's three years of always having the better ideas and working hard.
Now, I'd like to hear from the ones who think she deserved it and have them explain what it was that tripped their trigger to think that Don was right.
Because he wasn't.
I'm interested in getting to the bottom of this because I think there is something cultural and gender specific that is at the core of it. Personally, I'd like to rip it out like the invasive weed that it is. But first, we have to identify it.
Claudia is the first to express herself on the topic. She feels Peggy is sneaky and manipulative. These are not labels she pins on Pete. Pete is a 'dick'. This is true. But in spite of Pete's known manipulative behavior and overt sneakiness (taking Don's mail, attempting to blackmail him), it is Peggy, who has demonstrated time and again her more moral and ethical behavior at work, who is subject to the negative connotations.
So, after Claudia's single data point we find that it is OK for Pete to be an obvious sneaky and manipulative dick. But because Peggy used the pretense of getting Don's signature on something in order to open up a conversation with him, she is a manipulative sneaky Daddy's girl.
Claudia, correct me if this is an incorrect interpretation of what you wrote.
Riverdaughter, as several people have said, she didn't deserve to be yelled at, we are saying Don has a point, and essentially made the same point to Pete but much more nicely no more, not less.
"These are not labels she pins on Pete."
Seriously? I have to explicitly come out and say that the Pope is Catholic or bears shit in the woods? I think I mentioned that I don't respect Pete and thus don't expect things from him. I don't respect Don for that matter, but that's an entirely different issue.
Peggy is not an affirmative action hire. She's there because she's good and has the potential to be even better and in her circumstances she's come a long, long way through her talent and hard work. Trying to get to the next level by "suggestions" and caressing booties because her and Don share secrets is beneath her in ways in which blackmail and general weasel behavior are not beneath Pete because Pete IS a dick. I refuse to treat Peggy as an affirmative action case, but to each his/her own.
Dark Peggy- and I am asking you to explain to me what point Don was trying to make. Because I think the people who accept that Don have a point are revealing something about themselves than Peggy.
So, explain to me why you think Peggy was at fault. What did she do that makes Don's criticism of her valid? It is a given that he was deliberately cruel and she was in the wrong place and the wrong time. What I am trying to understand is what makes the content of his criticism of her "true" to some viewers of this encounter.
I am absolutely convinced, based on the evidence that I've seen in three years, that he was *not* correct in any way shape or form. But I want to know what you saw that I missed.
Does Trudy Dump Pete?
That's what I'm guessing from the previews. Has this already been discussed? I know the previews delight in misleading advertising, but I'm still guessing this could happen in the next ep. (It occurs to me that I've seen various complaints about the previews – not here – but no comment that MM may be having fun with deliberately false advertizing.)
I agree with riverdaughter's #16 assessment.
What are you on about, riverdaughter? Where is this groundswell of opinion that "Peggy deserved what she got" that you reference? Who said it's OK for Pete to be a dick?
Aside from just being generally harsh because of the mood he was in, there are two things Don said to Peggy that he never could/would have said to Pete, Paul or anyone else:
1) "You were just a secretary…"
2) "full-grown men would love your job" [paraphrasing]
He said these things to her because he's the same product of his sexist times that everyone else in the show is. Those two points were obnoxious, unfair and offensive (to me, at least). I don't see many people around here giving him a pass for that.
Aside from that, however, his points to her were no different than those made to other people — quit asking me for things, earn them instead, don't bullshit me with false pretenses. If that makes you think I'm condoning him entirely or saying Peggy deserved what she got, then you have a very black-and-white view of things.
Claudia, ahhh, stroking the booties was emotional blackmail. I didn't see that scene in the same way at all. Again, she is manipulative and blackmailing.
Let's not forget that Pete has always had the salary to live on his own. Peggy, after two years as a copywriter, does not. Her talk with Don on the subject of her salary was appropriate. She opened up to him about her aspirations in a way that makes her emotionally vulnerable to him. And yet, *she's* the manipulative one.
One of the odd things I have noticed after a couple decades in the working world is how we expect women to accept an overt amount of criticism but very, VERY little praise. Pete is always getting feedback, negative or positive. Peggy gets almost exclusively negative feedback. From everyone. But this is Ok. She has to prove that she is not an affirmative action hire by demonstrating that she can take heaps of abuse.
Now, it is true that women take more indirect approaches in speech and action. This is apparently what Peggy did with the Martinson sign off. Women are trained to not be confrontational. What would your reaction have been if she had just charged in there without pretence and said, "Don, I understand Conrad Hilton has offered us some of his business. I have read Hilton's book and have some insight into how the man's mind works. I'd like to work on this account in some capacity. I think I could help you out."
Would that have been better?
Sir Hillary, yes, a lot of commenters feel that some of what Don said to her were true. (Go look at Deborah's "I hate Don today" post)The only thing I can remotely fault her on was using the Martinson sign off as a pretence. Every other thing he said to her was untrue or just cruel. She has always worked hard. Her work is good even if he ignores it.
I think my point is, and this is just my humble opinion, there are far too many people who are quick to believe that Peggy is overreaching. Or hasn't been working hard. Or too young to get credit for her work. Or pushy, or manipulative. And maybe as you say, it has to do with the time. 1963 wasn't good for career women.
But it is now 2009 and we still have people who have the same attitudes as Don did 45 years ago. Isn't it time we stopped punishing women for trying to succeed? I guarantee you that this stuff still happens in the working world today. We haven't grown a whole lot. It's just that women have come to accept it as their lot in life. You go to work, no one takes your ideas seriously, you have to be confrontational. it's uncomfortable. people hate you for it and you don't get the same promotional opportunities or salaries as the guys. Oddly enough, the more education you have, the worse the gender salary discrepancy.
So, my question is, is there something about our reaction to this encounter that tells us something about ourselves and why we are unable to move forward?
It sure does, oh, enlightened one! We bow to your wisdom and nonjudginess. When you feel like you've had enough with lecturing people who don't necessarily share that extremely high ground where the air is thin and only suited for luminaries such as yourself, we can talk. Until then, why bother? There's your very well-articulated, clear answer:
"quit asking me for things, earn them instead, don’t bullshit me with false pretenses. "
…but to a black-and-white mind it doesn't matter anyway.
Claudia, now would be a good time to dial back on the sarcasm.
Riverdaughter,
What makes that scene so amazing is the complexity, the "tangledness" of where those two characters intersected at that moment.
As a person who managed an office full of people, I can tell you that there is both a proper way to approach your supervisor and ask for more (money, responsibility, work), and to respond to those requests from the management side.
Both Don and Peggy failed…but one does not excuse the other.
Why did Peggy get her office? Because she presented work-relatedreasons why she should. Roger listened and responded. Why did none of the men get that office? Because they were behaving just like Peggy in this scene. Every reason she gave was personal…living expenses, esteem, etc. As a manager, I would think she was serious and (maybe)ready if she did not use an excuse to bring it up. If she presented reasons why SHE would be an asset to that project…not the benefits that being on that project brings HER.
As a manager, Don failed miserably. Were his reasons valid? Yes. But not the way he presented them, or with the personal remarks and angry tone that he also dished up. I think that's where people are saying that Don was right…not in his IMHO unprofessional manner, but in the substance of his response.
And someone else brought it up in another thread, but when you want something from a superior, you wait until they're in a good mood. You'll get farther. Really. You don't come in just after you've seen THEIR boss coming out. It's called "managing your manager."
"Dark Peggy- and I am asking you to explain to me what point Don was trying to make."
I think for me the point isn't that Peggy "deserved it", in that she is overreaching because her work isn't good enough to merit more. And it's not that she earns less than she should by law, either.
The point is that in large part what you earn, and what you deserve to earn, depends not on the quality of the work you submit but the way you ask for it. Business is about personal relationships. Peggy's failing is not in her work but in her meek, modest, doormat manner. The way she asked after the Hilton account WAS sneaky, with the artwork that didn't need signing off on. And when Don barked at her, she blanched. She got dismissed because she's easy to dismiss. She needs to toughen up and gain some confidence.
She's at several disadvantages here: she's a woman, she's from the wrong background (compare with Pete's easy confidence and wealthy family), she's Catholic in a very WASP world. But she needs to overcome those disadvantages, not sulk about them.
She also needs to pick a time when Don doesn't have that look on his face. In the modern world, Don would probably apologize for the way he spoke to her eventually, but not in 1963.
I think the highly inappropriate relationship (from a business perspective) with Duck further demonstrates how weak she is. It was titillating in the sixties for women to think that sex put them on an equal footing with men, but it very much did not. It was useful in a Helen Gurley Brown way, for "snaring" a man, but I don't think that's what Peggy really wants. She sure as hell doesn't want to marry Duck (Please God, no). And as far as favors go, I think she's going to find out that he's really got nothing to offer.
I think the show is doing a good job here of showing how incremental change was, and how many minefields there were. In a sense all Peggy has to do is stand up and grasp her future, but in reality that is so difficult.
I just happened to be walking by this thread . . . with the Martinson copy . . . and . . . I figured I'd add more lighter fluid to the fire.
I'm sympathetic to the riverdaughter. I felt the word "wrong" was being used and implied rather carelessly. She was not wrong, in the macro sense.
If the Peggys of that era did not use all means available and necessary to get their foot in the door of the corporate patriarchy, females would still be sitting in the steno pool.
She is impatient but with good reason. She is aware that she is structurally put outside the loop strictly because she is female and she senses this will always be a problem to overcome. Don does recognize her ability but he is very much a privileged product of the same patriarchal power structure (CALL THE ALLITERATION POLICE!!) and he's almost, (almost) genetically compelled to protect that power structure. (whew)
She realizes this more fully than Don does, if he does at all (I think he's seeing a few rays of the light) She feels her time may be now but she still has to push to get inside the loop. That's a valid point of view.
She is not wrong.
Quite a few peoples defended Don with phrases like, "everything he said was correct". Well his comments were valid until he says that she should be accepting and grateful because grown men would kill to get her job. That injection of the ingrained institutional sexism was completely believeable for the times but it is big picture wrong. And it cheapened the rest of his criticism.
riverdaughter, things have shifted a bit but I appreciate your impatience; the sexism is still in there today.
And I'm with 27 dancewosleeping above, it was a twisted mess of emotions in that office and major FAIL all around but so fun to watch.
I think we need to look at the subtext of remarks like "you were my secretary" and "full grown men." They mean "you are less than." As a secretary, as a woman, Peggy isn't entitled to eat at the table, and should be grateful for whatever scraps she has and beware of asking for more. When Don is angry at Pete, he talks about his "deep lack of character." Peggy's character isn't in question, her very presence is.
To say to Peggy there are "full grown men" who want her job–what does that mean? That they're more entitled by virtue of their testicles and that therefore she's taken extra? Isn't that the equivalent of saying someone has "taken" the job of a white man?
Just as Don is flawed, so is Peggy. She's done many things to make us cringe: the hand on Don's in S 1:1. Letting Pete in her apartment. Sitting on the client's lap. Duck. And wandering into Don's office at the wrong time.
We love her, but she has made some missteps as all humans do. Deserve it? No, but the stars collided.
riverdaughter, I did not say that you weren't seeing something and I never ever said Peggy was wrong. I just went back to re-read what I've said and in pretty much each comment I said that he was too harsh and she did not deserve to be spoken to like that. I said she had bad timing and should not have used a pretext to ask about HIlton. . I think he was in a very bad mood and was already upset with her a bit for asking for a raise when the company is laying people off, cutting back on supplies etc. I think he feels, rightly or wrongly, that Peggy has been asking for too much lately, and that she may be overestimating her importance. He told her she was good but she was replacable (and who isn't replaceable), that she should focus on her work, which he told Pete too. Peggy is young, it takes a minute to get to the top and to get the plumb assignments and the money etc, etc, I think he was telling her to cool her jets a bit. I don't see a problem with him telling her any of those things. I wish he'd done it more gently and maybe over the course of time in dribs and drabs as appropriate. This was a slap in the face but in the long run, keeping it mind might help Peggy. She is bright and seems to take things in and change if needed.
Also you keep mentioning her living expenses and that Pete can support his wife but she can't live alone. Peggy lived alone before she moved to Manhattan but she gave that up to live in "the city". Pete has a very rich father-in-law who lent/gave he and Trudy money for the downpayment on his apartment, and who knows how much money they gave them when they got married or how many other times they've gotten money from Trudy's dad. Pete has worked at SC longer so he makes more and he works in another department and maybe all the accounts people earn more b/c they bring in the accounts. I don't know.
I'll end with this, I think on the larger point we agree; Peggy has a hard road to hoe b/c she is a woman and she is young. Sometimes I see her problems and to me they seem to be about being a woman, sometimes I don't And now, I have absolutely nothng more to say on this topic. It has given me a big headache. In this discussion, as in many discussion about tv,movies and books, there is no "wrong" unless something is stated that definitely contradicts the solid facts everything else is based opinion, perception, and outlook. We all see things very differently based on where we are in life, what has happened to us in the past, what we've studied, and all sorts of other things that make us, us. We look at this differently, which is good b/c if everyone looked at everything the same way, life would be pretty dull.
You all are looking at this from a 2009 point of view. In 1963, Don has a woman in a job that "full grown men (assumed providers, assumed husbands with baggage vs. single women, no "responsibilities") would kill for.
She got in on a pass. She's worked hard enough to keep her job. However, she does ask for stuff all the time. Should she? Sure, but she should also figure when and where to ask for it, gauge the mood of the person she's asking and ask herself if it truly is "her time".
I really don't see how this is so hard to figure out.
I subscribe to Barbara’s objection over our arguing that Peggy deserved to be treated cruelly. She didn’t and we didn’t say that.
I didn't see anyone saying Peggy deserved it either. Don can be cruel and right at the same time. The cruellest thing about that scene was that Don was telling Peggy some home truths. As much as we like to champion Peggy's career success, I've always thought her copywriting was good and not great. Campaigns like Belle Jolie and Popsicle were successful, but they don't take your breath away like Drapers moments of creative magic. There are circumstances when Peggy is right and Don is wrong – i.e. Patio. Peggy is more progressive in her ideas, like Pete is. But it's true that Peggy is going to have to "get better" before she can stand up against Don's creative muscle. Don can still flatten Peggy when he wants to. And I want Peggy to get the better of Don, but she is going to have to work for it.
I think at the heart of it is the often ignored fact tat SC is not a nice place to work, and the people who run it aren't nice either. Charming at times, but benevolent…no. People have forgotten that as Don has often treated Peggy differently, paternally almost, in the past. And now he has shown her mean Don, the one that everyone else has seen at some point. Maybe it was just her turn.
In that regard, Peggy really shouldn't get a pass on being the brunt of one of Don's tantrum (no matter how cruel or misplaced it is). It seems that it is part of the office dynamic. It is a very male oriented thing, I agree. But you need to adapt to the culture of your office. Or as Bert would say, become the room you are in.
Deserves got nothing to do with it.
I'm wondering – does anyone know where in Manhattan Peggy lives? I know it's not on the west side and I'm guessing somewhere midtown east or the Upper East Side, but I could be wrong. If true, why wouldn't Peggy go home before changing out of her clothes from the night before with Duck? The Pierre is around East 61st, right? She could have taken an extra 30 minutes to go home and change before going back to work obviously dressed from the day before in that orange and white number.
The other thing I'm thinking is that another person who thinks Peggy is manipulative is her mother. The whole TV purchase issue.
I don't know if these have been mentioned before or if this is the right thread, so I apologize in advance if so. I'm usually a lurker.
Fan, we don't know that Peggy has moved yet. The last we saw, in early June, she had just started apartment-hunting. Maybe by mid/late July she is still in Brooklyn.
I would bet that Peggy hasn't moved yet.
It bothered me that Peggy was essentially forced to wear the same very distinctive outfit to work the next day because it highlighted her mistake. Don can get away with changing a shirt and wearing the same suit, but Peggy's dress is not so easy to hide. Then again, going home and changing and then being late the day after getting reprimanded wasn't an option.
I really felt terrible for her about that. The "walk of shame" is never fun, but even more so in an office. At least she was wearing a daytime outfit.
If it had been a plaid outfit, no one would have noticed. But it had to be a red day.
And you know the steno pool will notice.
Only Sal would really notice if Don wore the same suit all week.