The Untold Truth Of Mad Men

Often regarded as the series that sparked television's so-called "Golden Age," Creator Matthew Weiner's acclaimed hit AMC series Mad Men has earned a spot of honor in TV history—not to mention the hearts of fans. But beyond the Manhattan skyline, the smoke-filled Sterling Cooper offices, and Don Draper's beloved Old Fashioned cocktails lies a world of well-kept secrets. From character switch-ups to the story behind that ending, here's the untold truth of Mad Men.

For a large portion of Mad Men alumni, the character they ended up playing wasn't their first pick—in fact, most of the main cast was gunning for different characters at the outset.

Take the silver fox John Slattery, famed for his sharp-tongued but oh-so suave portrayal of Roger Sterling. Slattery originally auditioned for Don Draper, but when the role went to Jon Hamm, Slattery remained a good sport. "It was apparent from the beginning how annoyingly good he was in that role," he said of Hamm as Don. "I don't think people appreciate how difficult it is to play something as subtle as he does. Trying to communicate so much from a guy who keeps his cards so close to his chest is almost an impossibility." Thankfully for us, we got to see Slattery work his acting chops as the part-time lothario, full-time advertising legend.

January Jones, who played the beautifully broken Betty Draper (later Francis), initially had her fingers crossed for the role of Peggy Olson. "I came in for Peggy twice," Jones once explained to The Hollywood Reporter. "[Weiner] said, 'Well, there's another role, but I don't really know what's going to happen with her.' He didn't have any scenes for me, so he quickly wrote a couple." This mysterious role ended up being Betty, and the rest was history.

Another actress yearning to portray the ambitious (if not slightly stubborn) secretary-turned-ad-woman was none other than Christina Hendricks. Hendricks first wanted to play Peggy, but was reportedly turned away for looking too mature. Instead, she auditioned for Midge, Don's mistress in the early seasons of the series played by Rosemarie DeWitt—and then landed the role she's perhaps most famous for, Joan Holloway Harris.

One thing's for certain regarding Peggy: Weiner knew Elisabeth Moss was the one from the get-go. After Moss auditioned, he was moved to tears.

Feisty, charismatic, and unexpectedly vulnerable, Joan is a character Mad Men fans hold near and dear. But in the show's infancy, Christina Hendricks had difficulty warming up to her role, finding Joan's personality harsh, cruel, and unrealistic. "I thought Joan was such a b—-, and I struggled sometimes trying to make her as real as possible because I thought, who would be so mean?" Hendricks said of the initial struggle.

Co-star John Slattery echoed Hendricks' early worry, admitting he didn't know what he was getting himself into. However, he was floored by her ability to turn the character into something incredible—which she totally ended up doing. (We're talking five-time Emmy nominee-level "incredible.") Slattery's first day on the Mad Men set was, coincidentally, his first taste of the fire-haired powerhouse. "My first scene... she's telling Peggy to 'go home, take a paper bag, tear out two eye holes and put it over your head," Slattery recalled. "It was that scene that kind of woke me up to the potential for this whole thing."

With time and productive talks with Weiner about Joan's complexities and true intentions, Hendricks melted into the role, and Slattery speaks for millions in saying that Hendricks took Joan to heights greater than the Mad Men team ever imagined.

Huge gaps are common in the Mad Men timeline. According to Weiner, not only was there a staggering seven years between the moment he wrote the pilot script and when he finally got around to penning the second episode, there's also a space between the filming of the initial two episodes.

Weiner wanted to fine-tune his vision, flesh out Don's backstory, and rework certain elements that would allow the world that existed in his mind to translate as a regular series. "A lot about my vision changed in terms of how the storytelling would be done. Ultimately it was done very much in the pilot the way we continued to do it," he explained. "I didn't know if it was just going to be a premise, or if we were going to be able to do something like that every week." Weiner finished work on The Sopranos while AMC sorted out a studio partner to pick the series up, a gap that gave him time to "think about what was going to happen in the show." He worked off an original film script he'd written, called The Horseshoe, that eventually became Don's entire history. Time heals all wounds, but in Mad Men's case, it can also create something beautiful.

Let's clear the smoke and mirrors by, well, clearing up the mystery of the show's ever-smoky rooms. The good news is that AMC and Weiner weren't total masochists and didn't actually force the actors to chain-smoke. Instead of the real deal, which Weiner has explained makes actors "agitated," "nervous," and prone to vomiting, Mad Men stars take drags of herbal cigarettes. Not as harmful as their tobacco counterparts—but still disgusting, according to Hendricks.

There are a fair few on the show who've dodged the proverbial bullet altogether—and there's a reason for it. As explained on the DVD commentary, the overall smoking standard is quite simple: "If the actor playing a character has been a smoker (or still is a smoker), then the character is a smoker on the show. If the actor never smoked, then his or her character is not a smoker." So Vincent Kartheiser, who plays the scrappy Pete Campbell, and Rich Sommer, who portrays the lovably sarcastic Harry Crane, were apparently never bitten by the nicotine bug, while other Mad Men actors had picked up the smoking stick at least once in their lives.

Because Mad Men found its home with AMC and not HBO, things panned out a bit differently in the vulgarity department. While the HBO rendition might've seen Don dropping more than a few F-bombs and perhaps even featured some extra skin, there were restrictions on what Weiner could and couldn't do on AMC with a TV-14 rating. "Mad Men is TV-14, not even TV-MA. I'm allowed three 's—s' a show. I can say 'Jesus,' I can say 'Christ,' but I can't say 'Jesus Christ' unless he's actually there," he explained. Weiner and the Mad Men team made the most of their range, punching out just the right amount of adult language in each episode.

Don Draper may not have entirely enjoyed his hot-to-trot wife's rendition of the 1960 Gillian Hills hit "Zou Bisou Bisou," but music lovers definitely did. Sung by Jessica Paré in a particularly sultry number meant to celebrate Don's 40th birthday, the show's version of the French yéyé song burst out of television screens to the top of Billboard's World Digital chart where Paré's cover secured the number one spot. An accomplishment certainly worthy of the kisses the song's lyrics center around.

Think of the Mad Men intro. What's the first image that pops into your head? Probably the silhouette of a man in a suit, falling from a New York City building. It is, after all, one of the most iconic symbols in the show's history—and Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) might've ended up recreating that very fall.

Weiner planned to give Harry the axe during the show's first season via suicide. He was supposed to leap from the Time-Life building to his death in a manner eerily similar to what we see in the slate sequence—and it's even joked about in season four when he says he "wishes his new office had a second floor so he could jump out of it." While we know he wound up climbing the corporate ladder instead, and the animation is actually modeled after Jon Hamm, it's still a little creepy.