LOS ANGELES – It takes three people to help Mad Men star Jessica Paré get ready for a premiere.
I’m in LA, hanging around the apartment of the Canadian star (and onetime NOW cover girl) as she braces for the paparazzi, TV and press cameras lining the red carpet laid out for the still-excellent AMC show’s sixth season kickoff.
We’re in the Los Feliz neighbourhood, a few blocks from the homes of Paré’s fellow stars January Jones and Jon Hamm. The private screening is still hours away, and Paré is preparing with the studied care of an athlete before a big game. Every style decision she and her taste-triumvirate make will be analyzed and assailed by an Internet crammed with critics the next day. Care is not an indulgence. It’s a professional necessity.
When we roll up in a black car hours later in front of the Directors Guild of America Theater on Sunset Boulevard, I cut away while Paré strides confidently down the carpet. Labels hanging from the stanchion-held red ropes clearly mark the affiliation of each reporter calling out to the stars as they roll in. Cast members later joke about the difficulty of answering barked questions about a show whose plot details they are all sworn to keep under lock and key.
On this glittery night, I too am into a suit as we mill in a lobby packed out with Mad Men stars and their families, as well as other AMC series glitterati like Norman Reedus (Darryl Dixon) from Walking Dead. At a pre-screening stop in the men’s room, already feeling a little out-of-body in my Canelli, I hear the voices of male Mad Men cast members growing louder as they head in. As the ever-smiling Rich Sommer, the show’s affable Harry Crane, rolls in with other cast members discussing work (i.e. the show) I feel I have been somehow transformed and joined these well-dressed fellows inside the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Scotch? Cigarette?
Mad Men creator Matt Weiner’s earned a reputation as a flinty-perfectionist. But when he takes the stage to speak before the screening, he comes across as a pleasant, very excited kid, pumped to be sharing “his stuff.”
And when he begs us not to reveal plot details, I finally get it. He doesn’t come across as a control freak but says, “Just let other people have the experience you are going to have tonight, let them see this show fresh and without expectation.”
Seems reasonable. I don’t even like watching the next week’s preview clips after each broadcast episode. So I’ve kept the pact and have not shared any plot details. But the two-hour season premiere episode is fantastic and bodes well for what might be the second-to-last season of this excellent series.
After the episode wraps, the night’s far from over. There are two more parties on this star-studded night: one at the Sunset Tower Hotel where a whole new throng of paparazzi will lay in wait, shouting and being shouted at. And later, a cast-only wind down dinner at the Chateau Marmont.
Like all packs of actors I have been with, whether on a small theatre production or a major Hollywood movie, there is a rapport and camaraderie that is inevitable on such an intimately crafted group effort. Parked around a torch-studded Sunset Towers pool, 30 Rock’s Jack McBayer adds to the star power as gossip is tossed among the cast. Jon Hamm is, well, a ham – laughing and goofing easily, confortable in his top billed role. Christina Hendricks (Joan Harris) declares herself a NOW magazine fan, having read the mag regularly while filming in Toronto on a gig before joining Mad Men. John Slattery is as smooth and charming as you would hope and good guy Sommer is as pleasant as his character on the show.
Christopher Stanley (Henry Francis) and I discuss the relative benefits of playing hockey – me – versus boxing – him – on a regular basis. As the night winds down, Weiner says “Good bye” to departing guests with the easygoing charm of a dinner party host.
Without betraying Weiner, I can say that Pare is awesome in tonight’s premiere and that fans of the show will not be disappointed.
Mad Men’s sixth season premieres tonight (Sunday) on AMC.
