With the premiere of Mad Men's fourth season rapidly approaching, we leapt at the chance to talk to the show's newest and most British series regular Jared Harris about the upcoming season, Jon Hamm's diva antics, Scrabble and more. The show's notoriously strict no-spoiler rule got in the way a little bit, but we still had a good time chatting with the delightful thespian. At the very least, it helped us get over the recurring nightmares he gave us while on Fringe.
TWoP: Congratulations on becoming a series regular.
Jared Harris: Thank you!
TWoP: Is this your first big TV press tour? Is it as bad as actors often make it out to be?
Harris: No, it's exciting that people are interested in your work. I think it's great! I think if you're doing those things all the time and people keep asking you the same questions it's a challenge to come up with original answers so you don't just feel like a tape recorder, but I think it's great.
TWoP: Was it always the plan to bump you up to regular? Or did that come as a surprise to you?
Harris: I signed up last year as a guest star, and really, the agreement that I got was that Matt [Weiner] was going to wait to see how the character played out. There was nothing definite. It was possible that I was going to be in it a lot, but on the other hand, if he wasn't that excited by the character, or he wasn't that excited about what I was doing, that it might just be a couple of episodes.
Matt very sweetly said that he was excited about what I did, and that he had no idea what he was going to do with Pryce, but it's quite possible that he always had it in his mind that he wanted to end the [season] the way he wanted to end the [season]. I really don't know. He could've just been being kind and trying to butter me up.
TWoP: So how many episodes of Season 4 have you shot so far?
Harris: They're on six.
TWoP: We hear the season doesn't necessarily start the day after Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is formed --
Harris: Who told you that?!
TWoP: The Internet! Can you hint at all how far ahead the time jumps, if at all?
Harris: They really don't want us to say anything, I'm sorry. The only person who could answer that question is Matt [Weiner].
TWoP: How's it been back on set in your second season?
Harris: It's been great! I feel a little bit less like I'm an interloping outsider. A little bit less. A little bit more part of it. But they all have this shorthand with each other and there's a lot of banter that goes back and forth which I end up sort of standing there smiling, trying to pretend to understand.
TWoP: I imagine it's difficult to break into such a tight group.
Harris: It's not that they're not friendly, it's just that you're joining a team that's been playing for an hour and there's twenty minutes left or something. They're really tight with their understanding of each other, and really clear with their character, and you're still trying to figure stuff out.
But the actors were really useful because you'd ask some question about "Well, why am I -- what's this referring to?" and really the best people to go to would be the actors, because they'd go "Oh, well, in Season 1 this happened and that's what this means" and you're like "Oh, shit! Right!" They look at you and they go "Haven't you seen the show?" And you go "Yeah, I have, but I didn't live it. I just watched it." And they'd look at you really suspiciously, like you haven't really done your homework or something.
TWoP: Can you tell us a little about the cast's reactions to the Season 3 finale twist?
Harris: As always they kept it a secret. One of the things that was really noticeable was, they do the read-through, and after the read-through, which is normally at lunchtime, they release the script to the rest of the crew. And I was shooting that day, and it was really telling that every single member of the crew was grabbing whatever spare time they could while we were shooting and they were reading that script to see what was going on. They really were interested, and invested in the story and curious to see what was going to happen. And that isn't often the case. You can be on sets and the crews aren't really that interested.
But I was told that they wanted me to come back at that point, and they handed me the scripts and they said, "You can't tell your agents what's in the script." And I was looking at them going "I think I'm in a pretty good position; go and bargain." But I couldn't tell them that my name's on the door.
TWoP: It must have been exciting to get such a huge character payoff as an actor.
Harris: Yeah! I was happy because Lane as a character was quite dry, and you'd sit at read-throughs throughout the course of the season and there'd be laughs rolling in for all the characters, but nothing for my character at all. And they didn't really get where the humor could come from from the character, but the first big one was "Merry Christmas" when I'm talking to the people back in London and that was a huge laugh. And I tell you, there's nothing an actor likes more than getting a laugh.
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TWoP: Are you allowed to tell us anything at all about Pryce's story arc in the new season?
Harris: I don't know what it is!
TWoP: You've filmed six episodes -- you know something.
Harris: Maybe you know! What have you found out?
TWoP: I know zero things! Well how about this: do you think Pryce's marriage will survive the season?
Harris: I know absolutely nothing.
TWoP: Alright, alright. Well, I guess you can't answer my question either--
Harris: You can ask!
TWoP: Well, part of the fun of each Mad Men pre-season is trying to predict which historical events the show will weave into its story. If the season does take place in 1964, which, chronologically it would, there's a lot to work with: The Civil Rights Act, The Beatles, the Vietnam War -- can you speak to what this season's "Kennedy's dead" episode might be?
Harris: What I can say is that I think Matt [Weiner] chose this decade for a reason. There's this idea that there's an idealized America back in the '50s when everything was perfect and America was at the height of its super-powerdom, and the American dream was fixed as a solid goal that everybody could attain. Which of course he was picking holes at. And he's sort of taking that idea and smashing into the upheaval of the '60s and one of the things he's interested in dealing with is the changes that were wrought on America during that decade -- the reverberations of it are still being felt to this day. So I would be surprised if he missed an opportunity on any of the big things that happened in the '60s.
TWoP: On a casting note, there's been speculation that Ken Cosgrove and Paul Kinsey have been written off the show. You don't have to say whether or not that's true, but maybe you could tell us whether or not you've seen them around on set?
Harris: I can't say.
TWoP: Any Jon Hamm diva stories?
Harris: He's the most un-diva-ish person. He's absolutely addicted to Scrabble. There's a whole bunch of people on set and they play iPhone Scrabble. They've got about 20 different games going on with different cast members and crew members and friends who live in China. They've got all these games going on all the time, just Scrabble-ing away like crazy.
TWoP: Is he good or is he just obsessed?
Harris: He's very good, yeah. You hear these, like, roars of somebody going "Yes!" if they manage to put like an "X" on a triple word score, or you suddenly hear "Gaahhh!" if somebody else got a big score. It's like a football match going on. And there are lots of suspicions of "Oh, they must be using a dictionary!"
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TWoP: Do you have time to watch any other shows?
Harris: I really enjoy House. I watch House a lot. FlashForward I enjoyed, I've got some friends on that show. I also really enjoy cooking, so I love Kitchen Nightmares.
TWoP: Ooh, I love Gordon.
Harris: Yeah, the format's gotten a bit predictable now because they've always got some hot-headed chef that he goes up against mano-a-mano, like a boxing match, so it's a little dreary and predictable now. But what I appreciate about what he's doing is those are homes and families and people's lives and he's going in and giving them a chance at rescue. It's really amazing.
TWoP: That's a nice reason to like him. I appreciate his creative insults.
Harris: Are they creative? He tends to sort of draw from the same --
TWoP: He does, but there's no beating "donut."
Harris: "Donut," yeah.
TWoP: Any closing remarks you'd like to make about the season?
Harris: It's juicy. It's really juicy. There are some episodes that are really funny, where there's a lot of laughs, and then there are other episodes where your jaw just hits the table at some really powerful stuff. Matt's not afraid to stir up some controversy. So it's good! I'm actually really looking forward to seeing the episodes.
TWoP: Me too!
Harris: There's a bunch of them that I'm really, really curious to see how they turned out.
TWoP: Well we're beyond excited about the new season. Thank you for talking to us!
Harris: Sorry I couldn't give you more info! Once this show airs I'll be glad to talk to you in detail about everything.
Get all things Mad Men here, and read our hopes for the new season.
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