Michael Gladis and I had to exchange a bunch of emails about our interview, which ended up being on the afternoon of Saturday, October 17. At first it was going to be Thursday evening, but he got the last minute chance to see Monty Python, and I simply told him, “I’d blow me off for that.” I mean, really.
He’s currently in New York City, staying with friends, who apparently have a very barky dog that I could hear in the background. We’d never spoken before”the previous BoK interview was conducted by Roberta. Michael is very warm and easy to talk to, and his demeanor is so gentle, something I didn’t expect from Paul Kinsey. We chatted for just about an hour, digging all the way back to season one.
Here are some of my favorite parts of the interview. Watch for a full transcript later in the week.
We talked about The Color Blue, how loose the scene was, and Michael called it “a gift” that he tries to serve.
Deborah: My favorite part of all of it was when you stamped your feet on the floor.
Michael: That little celebration of the idea?
Yes!
[laughs] Yes! I think that was the last shot of the day. And you know what was funny about that? After I did like four takes of that, as pathetic as this may sound, that feet stomping was the most ab workout I’ve done in quite a long time. My abs hurt afterwards.
That’s funny. [both laugh]
I remember thinking, wow am I out of shape!
In talking about his confrontations with Peggy throughout The Color Blue, he talked about Paul’s character with insight.
The whole thing with Paul is his pride. And that, maybe more than anything, is probably how I am most similar to Paul Kinsey and what I have to learn from Paul Kinsey. That has maybe been the greatest gift of playing him, is that kind of central aspect to his character. He’s so proud.
That led to Paul’s friend Jeffrey from My Old Kentucky Home, and how Jeffrey poked at Paul’s pride, and that got into me asking about shooting the scene.
That was spread over a couple of days. There is one funny moment from that episode that’s become an inside joke on Mad Men. When Smitty asks for Paul’s sweater and I say “It’s mohair.” That’s one example where I think I did that line, oooooh, fifty times.
[both laugh]
And they were looking”it was Dahvi Waller, and Jen Getzinger was directing” they were looking for some minutia, some specific reading. I don’t know exactly what they were looking for and I don’t know that they ever got it, but I know they ended up using, I think the third take..Charlie Collier, the head of AMC, gets the dailies for everything, so he watches everything as we shoot it. He came up to me shortly after we shot that scene and just said [deadpan] “It’s mohair.” And I knew that he had seen all of them. God, he had seen me say that line a billion times.
We talked some about favorite lines, and that led to a surprising behind-the-scenes tale of The Color Blue:
The line about, “I don’t need you to put your little swirl on top of my idea” that Paul says to Peggy was actually said to Matt when he was a staff writer on another show…They were bantering ideas about the writer’s room on whatever the show was, and he added to this old writer’s idea and he said that to him later. I remember Matt turning to me, because I was surprised, I was surprised that he was the subject of the line and not…the one who spoke it…and he turned to me with his little sly smile and he said “I’m not always the person that you think I am in these lines.” Half the time he’s the receiver.I’m very aware of the fact that Paul is Matt’s writer’s ego. Paul is Matt kind of ruminating on his writer self, and oftentimes beating up on his writer self, and it’s a lot of fun to be the subject of that.
Yeah, you’re like a walking id.
Kind of! Peggy is really Matt at heart. She is the heart of this series, so it’s fun to play with that, when Paul and Peggy are together.
Of course, I could not resist asking Michael about Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency.
I want you to tell me what it’s like getting splattered with blood!
That was one of those moments. They brought in the special effects team that had done a lot of Tarantino’s early movies…It was Pulp Fiction: The guy gets shot in the face in the back of the car and you get that great blood spatter.…So they brought in this great team, and we’ve shot so much of it, and we’re finally getting to the point where we are going to do the blood splatter. They’re loading up this pneumatic blood-spraying cannon with a swivel head and they’re loading it with tons of liquid blood, and then pieces of cloth that will form clumps. We were going to try to do it in one take, we ended up doing it in one take, and so the whole set is sort of charged. People had come down to see it, like the writers had come down to see this take. You know, we all know what it’s going to be. Right before they’re about to call “action,” there was amazing energy on set, and I turn to Rich Sommer, my dear friend, and I said “We have the coolest job in the world.”
22 Responses to “EXCLUSIVE Interview with Michael Gladis: "It's mohair."”
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Thanks for posting the interview and I agree with Michael. They do "have the coolest job in the world."
re: Lois still working at S-C – does Mona know about this?
(sorry, but I think I'm going to have to say that numerous times before I get it out of my system.)
Gold. Worth the price of admission to The Basket.
Love the insight on how Paul is Matt Weiner's "writer's ego." If so, it seems that MW, for all his Emmys, still has all the insecurities about his own talent that all writers have. That's strangely reassuring for all of us who are far less talented than MW.
Much praise to Michael Gladis for his line-reading of "oh my God," in the final office scene. It got across Paul's hurt pride, awe of Peggy, and sudden realization that he may never be on that level of talent. One of my favorite Paul moments.
Can somebody explain to me what Cosgrove is doing in the show? Cosgrove is like the anti-Paul . . . he's published in the New Yorker but he doesn't really care. He comes up with the idea for Western Union but Don shoots it down without realizing he's right. Cosgrove is like the idiot savant and Paul is the opposite, whatever that is.
Melville, we discussed that line reading at length and it will all be in the full transcript.
I was out of the house all day on Sunday, so I skipped around in the interview, transcribing only juicy bits so you all could enjoy it asap. I may not finish the transcript until the end of the week. I'm typing as fast as I can!
I know this may sound crazy but I've always considered Michael Gladis/Paul the most handsome guy on the series. It's just something about him. Glad to see he's pretty charming in real life. Great interview! Thanks BoK!
His scene with Lois was among the funniest in the series.
"It's mohair." It was a seminal line. It summed up so much about Paul's character, i.e.) pointing out it was an expensive sweater b) the fact that he could afford an expensive sweater) and c) his feeling about having to clean an expensive sweater after it got full of dust and pot smoke.
Pete simply wouldn't care (well, he doesn't smoke so he wouldn't be in there anyway). He'd just toss it to someone, and leave it for the maid to find it.
Don wouldn't own a mohair sweater.
Sal would know the weaver.
Great interview!! It'll be exciting to see the rest.
My favorite part of the luminous "oh my God" moment is that I believe it's the first time in the series we've ever seen a man in awe of a woman purely because of her MIND.
Beautiful, and I look forward to more such moments!
I think the funniest scene was Paul Kinsey Theater. Paul Kinsey Theater made me weep.
Marty Faraday was luminous in his role as Date #2; Unkempt Hair Woman.
But "You do that sometimes" to Lois, in reference to looking through his stuff, was priceless.
My favorite part was when Paul pointed to Date #1's perfect hair, and Peggy stared straight at Don and touched her hairdo. I died.
It's interesting that Matt sees Paul as his alter ego. Michael seems like he'd be a lot of fun to hang out with on set between takes.
@ 5 bjk- Ken is an easygoing guy. He's working at Sterling Cooper because he knows he needs to earn money, and being an accounts man at an ad agency is a much more stable job than trying to earn money as a writer. His job gives him enough free time so that he can still write. Ken seems to do his job well. I can't recall any time that Ken made a major error at work that put an account or Sterling Cooper in jeopardy. If I'm wrong, a fellow basketcase will correct me.
Ken made a major error at work that put an account or Sterling Cooper in jeopardy.
Ken's handling of Utz Potato Chips almost crumbled under the comic stylings of Jimmy Barrett, setting in motion the Bobbie Barrett Affaire, setting in motion Betty finding out about Don's philandering… But yeah, other than that….
oops, meant to put some ital tags on my first sentence on #15, quoting from retrogirl @ #14.
Retro, Ken left Mrs. Utz alone with Jimmy Barrett, apparently an issue that had already been discussed.
In addition, he did in fact bring a John Deere lawn mower into the office. Just sayin'.
@ 7 Adrienne – I agree. Paul is hot. Even though only a few of us seem to realize it.
I haven't seen the latest episode so I'm going to be a bit behind on the discussion, but the thing that intrigues me about Paul is that hitherto he *hasn't* seemed to be that ambitious. Or at least not in the same way as many of the other characters. He's a snob, an intellectual poseur, and he likes his mohair sweaters, but I don't get the sense that he's a social climber. He doesn't suck up to clients; he says what he thinks. In fact he often doesn't seem to be trying that hard. I can't tell whether this, too, is another pose on his part, or whether his attention is simply directed elsewhere. Maybe he doesn't consider Sterling Cooper as worthy of more than a minimum amount of time and effort? Maybe the competition from Peggy will wake him up a bit?
# 11 – "I think the funniest scene was Paul Kinsey Theater. Paul Kinsey Theater made me weep."
Deb, maybe that scene was something more than funny (which, of course, it was) – but think of it – two couples in an open-top car. Yet another JFK reference in the show …
I'm praying for a Paul Kinsey spin-off.
#18 Emily: With Paul, it's not about ambition, it's about ego. He spars with Peggy not because he wants to be the top writer; he just doesn't like being shown up, especially by a woman.
Thanks to Michael Gladis, Paul has become quite the perfect comic foil.
If you're a Facebooker, you'll want to check out the "Mad Men" Fan Gifts application. One of the "gifts" you can send: A Bloody Good Mower.