A Chance for Retro Reinvention

For the 'Mad Men' protagonist, Don Draper, the melancholy if alluring young widow he met on a plane ride in Sunday's season premiere could be just a passing flirtation or perhaps a new flame who will share in his extramarital escapades.

To many viewers, however, this mystery woman has an altogether different identity: She is the actress Neve Campbell, star of the 'Scream' movies and six seasons of the 1990s Fox drama 'Party of Five.'

The appearance of a familiar contemporary face might seem to shatter the carefully wrought illusion of 1960s America on this AMC drama, but Ms. Campbell is among the latest additions to an unlikely roster of veteran television stars who have found recurring roles and reinvented themselves in its period clothing and hairstyles.

It is an eclectic club that, over seven seasons, has found room for performers like the 'L.A. Law' veteran Harry Hamlin, who plays the senior advertising executive Jim Cutler; Alexis Bledel, from 'Gilmore Girls,' and Linda Cardellini, from 'Freaks and Geeks,' who have both played cheating housewives; and Dan Byrd, of 'Cougar Town,' who appeared in Sunday's episode as the eager, in-over-his-head marketing executive of a footwear company.

For established TV stars who spend years in a single role, constant reinvention helps avoid typecasting or obsolescence.

'Any character I play, any new job I do, I hope that I'll transform in some way and people will see me in a different light,' Ms. Campbell said in an interview. She added that 'Mad Men,' with its retro setting and stylistic details, can bring about these metamorphoses 'on a level that would not happen anywhere else.'

Matthew Weiner, the 'Mad Men' creator, said he was not going out of his way to cast recognizable actors and was often averse to them.

'Sometimes I'm, like, 'Uch, it's him? It's her? I know them so well,' ' Mr. Weiner said. 'It's not that I don't like them. A lot of the times I love them. I just don't want to tear the fabric of the show.'

But sometimes, Mr. Weiner said, these choices were too enticing to pass up. 'I want to give people the chance to be seen in a new light,' he said. 'It's part of the story of the show, right?'

Taking a lesson he learned on 'The Sopranos,' which largely starred actors who were not famous when they joined the series, Mr. Weiner said he avoided established stars for the 'Mad Men' principal cast, preferring then-unknown performers like Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss.

From the start, Mr. Weiner has required actors to audition for 'Mad Men,' no matter their stature, which weeds out certain players who regard this as a concession.

But he also has an omnivorous pop-cultural appetite and, by his own admission, a strange sense of what constitutes celebrity.

(Among the actors whom Mr. Weiner said he regarded as almost too famous is Joel Murray, who plays the bumbling ad exec Freddie Rumsen and whose credits include the sitcom 'Dharma & Greg' and the cult '80s comedy 'One Crazy Summer.')

Mr. Hamlin, who starred in more than 100 episodes of 'L.A. Law' and has since been featured on shows like 'Veronica Mars' and 'Army Wives,' said he had not expected to ever be asked to audition for 'Mad Men.'

'I was under the impression that they didn't use anybody who had any profile,' he said.

Mr. Hamlin was originally brought in to read for a smaller role, as half of a husband-and-wife pair who try to invite Don and Megan Draper into their swinging lifestyle. (That part went to Ted McGinley, a ubiquitous character actor.)

But in thick-framed designer eyeglasses ('I'm old,' Mr. Hamlin explained, 'and I can't really read anymore without glasses on'), the actor, who is 62, looked different from his swaggering 'L.A. Law' lawyer, Michael Kuzak, Mr. Weiner said.

'He was physically so different than I remembered him,' he added. 'Still handsomer than 99 percent of the people in the world.'

Instead, Mr. Hamlin was offered the Jim Cutler character, which earned him an Emmy nomination and a change of pace from his role on 'Shameless' as a closeted gay man.

Mr. Weiner said he was not familiar with Mr. Byrd, who plays the awkward, sarcastic son of divorced parents on the comedy 'Cougar Town,' when he came in to read, which Mr. Byrd said was just as well since he was certain he had blown the audition.

'I thought it went really poorly,' Mr. Byrd said, 'to the point where I immediately left and put myself on tape, thinking I could maybe salvage the experience. But I'd say I leave 95 percent of auditions feeling terrible.'

That, it turned out, was the exact quality Mr. Weiner said he was looking for in the actor.

'Anyone can come in and act snotty and in charge,' he said. 'He's playing insecurity, and when you're anxious at an audition, it's probably one of the easiest emotions to do.'

Mr. Weiner said he briefly wondered if Ms. Campbell would be too identifiable to play Lee Cabot, who catches Don Draper's attention on a cross-country flight.

'But even if I'd never seen her before,' Mr. Weiner said, 'she would have gotten the part because she has a maturity. She is catnip to Don - absolutely irresistible. She knows this is exactly what he's drawn to.'

Ms. Campbell (who, like Mr. Byrd, was forbidden to say whether her character would return) said she that was not looking for any long-term guarantees from the show but that, as the mother of a 21-month-old son, she was becoming choosier in her roles. 'It's got to be something I'm very passionate about,' she said. 'I don't want to work just to work.'

'Mad Men,' she added, was an opportunity to immerse herself in a world like the one her mother might have come up in, when things seemed just a little bit cooler.

'Well, cool for men, anyway,' Ms. Campbell said. 'Not so cool for women.'

Lokasi:

Share :