The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014


Episode #19： Mad Men and Manliness with Mad Man’s Rich Sommer

Topics
manliness in TV shows style influence on wardrobe madmen lessons on manliness
Hosted by
Brett McKay
Mentioned
Harry Crane Rich Sommer Don Draper Janie Bryant Mad Men Admin Harold Crane Tony Soprano Gentleman Jennifer Beatrice Sopranos Kennedy Nixon
Episode #49： The Way Of Men With Jack Donovan

Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

169.44

Word count

3,288

Sentence count

190

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Rich Sommer stars in the hit TV show Mad Men, and he talks about how he got into acting and how he became the man that we know and love so well. He also talks about his character, Harry Crane, and the challenges he and his wife faced in the early 1960s.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This episode of the Art of Manless podcast
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00:00:55.020 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another episode
00:00:57.580 of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:01:00.360 Now, AMC's hit series Mad Men follows the lives of men
00:01:03.700 working as high-powered advertising executives
00:01:05.820 in early 1960s America.
00:01:07.940 While the men of Mad Men dress sharp
00:01:09.820 and exude manly confidence,
00:01:11.720 their characters are often marred by
00:01:13.260 marital infidelity, sexism, homophobia, and racism.
00:01:17.360 Through the show, viewers can get a glimpse
00:01:18.900 at American masculinity before the radical social changes
00:01:21.820 of the 1960s, and see how men of the time
00:01:24.520 deal with these coming changes.
00:01:25.760 Well, our guest today stars in AMC's Mad Men.
00:01:29.100 His name is Rich Sommer, and he plays Admin Harold Crane,
00:01:32.260 and Rich lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.
00:01:35.780 Rich, welcome to the show.
00:01:37.480 Thank you. Thank you for having me.
00:01:38.920 Rich, before we start talking about your work on Mad Men,
00:01:41.540 tell us a little bit how you got involved in acting,
00:01:44.620 and what got you started, and how long have you been doing it?
00:01:46.560 I mean, I found it the way I think a lot of people sort of stumble upon it,
00:01:52.920 which was taking a class in junior high.
00:01:56.100 And I'd done, you know, a couple little school plays
00:01:59.920 and church plays and whatnot when I was a kid,
00:02:02.260 but this was the first time that I kind of actually started looking at it
00:02:07.340 as something, a way to spend my time.
00:02:09.180 So, yeah, I stayed involved through high school,
00:02:12.960 and when I went to college I majored in theater,
00:02:15.180 and I took a year off.
00:02:17.640 And after that I went to grad school for acting
00:02:21.080 and got my master's in acting,
00:02:23.460 then went off to New York and sort of tried to give it a go.
00:02:27.340 And it's working in a small way so far,
00:02:31.340 so we'll see how far I can run it.
00:02:33.240 How did you get involved with Mad Men?
00:02:36.580 It was just an audition.
00:02:38.540 It was at the end of a particularly terrible pilot season
00:02:41.960 in that I had had a terrible pilot season.
00:02:45.460 I didn't get a single callback.
00:02:47.280 I was really feeling, you know, I think every actor
00:02:51.200 and probably anyone who has any job in the world
00:02:52.700 goes up and down on whether they want to continue pursuing
00:02:55.800 this thing that they love.
00:02:56.880 And I was at definitely a valley moment of wondering
00:03:00.840 if I could really even continue with this.
00:03:02.540 And Mad Men came up, and I did the audition,
00:03:06.200 and it went okay, and I had the callback,
00:03:08.360 and that went well, and here we are.
00:03:10.700 So for those who haven't seen the show,
00:03:13.240 and even those who've seen some of it,
00:03:15.820 can you tell us a little bit about your character,
00:03:18.240 Harry Crane, on Mad Men?
00:03:19.580 Sure.
00:03:20.400 He started in the beginning of the series as a media buyer.
00:03:25.420 One of the guys who basically, if a client came to us,
00:03:28.180 he was covering sort of where their media was going.
00:03:30.980 He would put it on a billboard or in a magazine or in the newspaper or on TV,
00:03:35.640 and not on TV as much on the radio.
00:03:38.440 And as TV has become more sort of strong as a media outlet in the 60s,
00:03:46.280 Harry has the idea of pitching a TV department for their ad agency, Sterling Cooper.
00:03:53.280 The idea is accepted, and he becomes the head of the television department.
00:03:56.980 And as the series goes on, you see that the TV department becomes bigger and bigger,
00:04:02.460 obviously, I mean, historically, it becomes a bigger and bigger medium.
00:04:06.100 And Harry's job sort of becomes bigger and bigger with it.
00:04:09.720 And what about his personal life?
00:04:11.160 I know the show kind of highlights some of that, too.
00:04:12.980 Yeah, well, Harry is married to Jennifer, and they have a daughter named Beatrice.
00:04:21.520 Before they had their daughter, in the first season, Harry cheated on his wife.
00:04:29.800 He had a small moment of infidelity while they were getting in the –
00:04:33.980 not a small moment, a moment of infidelity while they were getting the returns on the Nixon-Kennedy vote.
00:04:40.040 They had a big party at Sterling Cooper, and Harry got a little drunk, made some bad decisions.
00:04:47.020 As far as we know, has since that moment stayed true,
00:04:50.920 although he doesn't seem like necessarily the happiest guy in the world in that marriage.
00:04:54.840 And, you know, it seems like – to that end, it seems like Harry is somewhat different
00:04:59.680 than some of the other characters on Mad Men as, you know, say like a Don Draper,
00:05:03.940 where it's just constant marital infidelity and constant flings.
00:05:08.480 You know, Harry – you had that moment, but it seems like Harry kind of stays true to his wife.
00:05:12.480 Is that –
00:05:12.900 Yeah, I mean, it seems to me – I remember in the first season,
00:05:16.260 people would approach me on the street and say things like,
00:05:18.300 you know, I'm so glad that, you know, we have Harry Crane.
00:05:21.200 We need one good guy on the show.
00:05:23.020 So – and, of course, as they were approaching me, I had already –
00:05:25.520 we'd finished shooting the first season,
00:05:26.820 and I knew they were going to be sorely disappointed in the next few weeks.
00:05:30.280 But, yeah, I mean, he's a guy who obviously made an error,
00:05:33.620 but obviously is trying to sort of be a good guy, and that's hard.
00:05:40.540 I mean, I think it's something I've talked about in the past,
00:05:43.160 but for Harry there's a big difference between being a man and being a good guy
00:05:49.120 and being one of the guys.
00:05:50.440 And I think that he tries to toe that line as much as he can,
00:05:54.660 or at least he did in the first couple seasons especially.
00:05:58.020 It sort of seems to have waned in the third season.
00:06:00.200 But he's, you know, trying to keep a distinction between –
00:06:05.060 you know, he draws a line, how far he's willing to go socializing
00:06:07.600 before it's sort of stepping on what he pictures as a good guy, I think.
00:06:14.440 Yeah, I've noticed that.
00:06:15.480 It seems like he has no problem kind of cracking the jokes with the guys.
00:06:20.500 But, yeah, he doesn't go as far as actually acting on some of the things
00:06:23.360 that the men talk about and joke about.
00:06:26.180 Yeah, yeah.
00:06:27.560 Rich, what does manliness mean to you personally?
00:06:30.380 And has starring in Mad Men influenced your perception of manliness at all?
00:06:35.260 Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, manliness –
00:06:37.960 in college, the first time I'd heard the term manliness,
00:06:41.640 it was probably not in the best way I –
00:06:43.960 or at least sort of commercially heard it. 0.51
00:06:47.020 There's a book called The Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness, 0.92
00:06:50.620 which one of my college roommates had. 0.55
00:06:53.400 But it was sort of – I think it was sort of tongue-in-cheek,
00:06:56.520 but it sort of bothered me, that book,
00:06:58.620 because it suggested that manliness meant beer and, you know,
00:07:04.880 movies with fighting and conquering every woman in sight.
00:07:10.940 And it sort of set this, like, tone that I didn't really get.
00:07:15.340 And so as time has gone on, it seems like that term has been sort of reclaimed
00:07:23.400 by people who don't necessarily think that that's the way that being a man happens.
00:07:31.840 Exactly.
00:07:32.800 I mean, for me, I think it's just about being honest and being true to your family,
00:07:39.220 being loyal to your family, and sort of – I don't know.
00:07:46.180 That stuff doesn't – that can be part of it, certainly,
00:07:49.560 but it's less about sort of an image you want to portray
00:07:55.300 and sort of just living a life of sort of – it's hard to answer that question.
00:08:01.840 I don't want to say, like, virtue or morality.
00:08:03.440 I'm not talking about it from, like – those are things that are sort of –
00:08:07.500 almost sound quasi-religious.
00:08:08.960 I'm not talking about that at all.
00:08:10.480 I'm talking about just being a, you know, a good person
00:08:14.520 and not letting the sort of entourage idea of what being a dude is control your choices.
00:08:24.360 So more substance, less style.
00:08:27.820 Certainly. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:08:29.940 I mean, there's some style.
00:08:32.320 Yeah, definitely.
00:08:33.440 But yes, yes, more substance and style.
00:08:36.660 And has Mad Men kind of given you any insights about manliness or changed it anymore?
00:08:43.640 I mean, what's interesting is that our show is now sort of – a lot of people talk to me about how our show –
00:08:50.100 it depends on what angle you're coming from – shows, like, what being a man is or was.
00:08:56.040 A lot of people, you know, a lot of people come up to me, young men, say,
00:09:03.460 oh, man, it looks like it was so great.
00:09:06.040 Like, you could smoke and drink at the workplace.
00:09:07.520 You could say whatever you wanted to women.
00:09:09.060 And I never know how to respond because it's always like, ah, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing.
00:09:19.020 A lot of what you're talking about – I've been on – there's this guy named Mancow who does a radio show.
00:09:25.360 And I was on Mancow's show once.
00:09:26.880 He said all that stuff about how – man, it was great.
00:09:30.500 You know, man, I wish we could do that stuff.
00:09:32.860 And I said, yeah, but, you know, it was also, like, a horrifically racist time, a horrifically gender-biased time.
00:09:42.260 And he's like, oh, no, that's not what I'm talking about.
00:09:44.800 That's not – and, you know, of course, backpedaling.
00:09:47.060 I mean, that's the thing people don't take into account, that it may look fun to smoke and drink at work,
00:09:51.220 but also I don't have any idea how anyone got anything done.
00:09:53.940 And so, yeah, and then as far as, like, the stories go, yeah, it's shown me – I mean, for me and hopefully for every viewer –
00:10:03.640 that this stoic man, especially speaking of Don Draper, this is not what we necessarily should be aspiring to.
00:10:12.880 And I think that at first – and it's sort of like Tony Soprano, like you kind of root for him.
00:10:17.940 And maybe you are still – maybe we should still be rooting for him as, you know, for entertainment value.
00:10:22.200 But he's a pretty dark and fairly despicable guy.
00:10:27.600 And it's – I think there are a lot more lessons in what not to do than what to do from Don Draper.
00:10:33.320 So one of the things that Mad Men gets praised about is its style.
00:10:38.720 And there's some killer style on Mad Men.
00:10:41.700 Has your wardrobe of the show – on the show been influenced – has it influenced the way you dress in daily life?
00:10:47.280 Or do you get to keep any of the wardrobe that you get to wear as Harry Crane?
00:10:50.220 I don't get to keep any of the wardrobe.
00:10:53.940 I say no.
00:10:54.900 I wish I did.
00:10:56.220 But the nice thing is that there are places that have sort of – I mean, to answer the first question and the second question, sort of, yes.
00:11:04.820 It has influenced how I dress in real life.
00:11:07.840 It depends on sort of the event.
00:11:09.520 But I have definitely started paying more attention.
00:11:13.420 I got – you know, right when the show started, I bought a couple books.
00:11:17.360 There's one that's kind of the Bible of men's fashion, I think, Dressing the Man.
00:11:22.480 Yeah, that's a good one.
00:11:23.620 That's really good.
00:11:24.540 And then another was Gentleman of Timeless Fashion.
00:11:26.440 Those are both, like, pretty good, basic, bare-bone, like, here's how to mix, you know, patterns, and here's what to wear.
00:11:36.800 And that's good because, like, to our first party that we had, I didn't own a suit for our first party.
00:11:44.040 And so my only time going to the Friars Club here in Los Angeles before it was dismantled and is no longer the Friars Club was wearing a suit that I bought at Men's Warehouse that week
00:11:56.940 and, like, hastily put together to try and, like, to try and approximate what I thought I was supposed to wear, and it was a horrible disaster.
00:12:07.900 The pictures from that party I am embarrassed of to this day.
00:12:10.620 It just didn't work.
00:12:11.380 And so I had our costume designer, Janie Bryant, has always been really super generous with all of us in trying to kind of help us outside of the show
00:12:21.820 get a sort of approximation of the look that we have on the show, which is really, it's been great.
00:12:28.460 Now, you know, now I have kind of a closet full of suits, and people are willing to help us kind of maintain the look of the show
00:12:36.200 because it's important to Janie and important to the show as much as it is to us to sort of hold up on the outside.
00:12:46.340 Yeah.
00:12:46.880 So, Rich, why do you think Mad Men is so popular among young people?
00:12:50.960 I mean, you get on Facebook or Twitter, and, like, as soon as an episode's over, people are Facebooking it and saying,
00:12:56.540 oh, this is amazing, and it's all young people, like, people in their 20s and 30s, and now we're seeing, you know, young men, you know, dressing like Don Draper.
00:13:05.300 They're doing their hair like Mad Men with the part on the side using brill cream, drinking scotch.
00:13:09.980 I mean, what cultural nerve do you think the show struck?
00:13:13.440 I'm not sure.
00:13:15.520 I mean, it's frankly kind of weird to me.
00:13:19.040 It's weird that the show has become sort of pop culture.
00:13:22.860 I like it.
00:13:24.000 I like that it has.
00:13:24.900 We're all kind of excited about it.
00:13:26.400 I mean, it's interesting.
00:13:28.280 But I don't know.
00:13:29.800 I'm nervous always that part of the thing that is striking is that when people are dressing that way,
00:13:37.900 that part of it is because of the excess on the show and the sort of, you know, the lifestyle of the smoking and the drinking and the whole thing,
00:13:47.320 and that it all fits a sort of look that they're going for.
00:13:53.620 But beyond that, I think that, you know, on the good side of the coin, I hope it has just sort of reminded people that simple, classic fashion has not gone anywhere.
00:14:05.960 I think that, you know, we need that reminder every 10 years or so that, you know, as whatever new big fad comes through,
00:14:13.620 people eventually remember, oh, yeah, there's also this thing that we can always go back to that will always look good,
00:14:20.620 that you still can be an individual in it.
00:14:23.700 You can still make choices in it.
00:14:25.220 But, you know, with these sort of simple rules, it works.
00:14:30.100 I don't know.
00:14:31.020 I don't know.
00:14:31.540 It's always strange to me.
00:14:34.060 I didn't, I certainly, I mean, I have to say that when I watched Sopranos, I certainly drank more red wine and ate more spaghetti.
00:14:40.680 So I understand it.
00:14:43.380 But it's, I don't know.
00:14:45.680 I don't know what that is about our culture.
00:14:47.080 We kind of choose to identify with it through our activities.
00:14:51.440 I guess I get it.
00:14:53.040 I mean, it's a strange cultural thing that we do.
00:14:56.780 Yeah.
00:14:57.000 I think we've talked about this a little bit, touched on a little bit, but what are some lessons about manliness, both positive and negative, that people can take away from madmen?
00:15:06.320 Well, I think it's pretty clear that infidelity is not really going to get you too far as far as maintaining a happy marriage.
00:15:18.780 That seems like a clear lesson.
00:15:22.060 I think that there is an idea of loyalty, but there's also a need to sort of watch out for yourself as well.
00:15:31.180 So, you know, I'm not saying selfishness, I'm saying sort of self-preservation is something that, you know, if you need to do something to protect yourself and your family,
00:15:44.160 and it means being, you know, quote-unquote disloyal to, you know, someone that you work for or work with, sometimes it has to be done.
00:15:52.460 I mean, I'm not necessarily sure of what specific example I could give you from the show, but I feel like that's sort of a theme that happens.
00:16:00.260 This sort of loyalty to, just loyalty overall, I think is a theme in the show.
00:16:07.460 And, you know, honesty, be honest.
00:16:12.220 It's a hard question because it is a show that I think does kind of show you a lot of things about what being a man was at the time.
00:16:21.320 And I'm not entirely sure they're all positive.
00:16:26.980 In fact, I'm sure that they're not all positive lessons on that stuff.
00:16:31.300 And it's not necessarily, I shouldn't say it's showing you what being a man was at the time.
00:16:36.440 I think it's showing you what being considered a man was at the time.
00:16:40.760 And now we have a different notion of what being considered a man is.
00:16:44.160 But just like with fashion, there are still these sort of simple base rules that as long as you're following those, you should be okay, you know, courtesy and honesty and things like that.
00:16:57.680 But I think that being a man is the same now as it was then.
00:17:01.940 It's just sort of with a different hair product.
00:17:05.280 But whatever, there's my bumper sticker for you.
00:17:09.100 So last question, Rich.
00:17:10.360 What's one piece of advice that you'd give to men?
00:17:13.600 I would say, you know, be honest and educate yourself.
00:17:20.040 I guess that's, and by educate yourself, I don't necessarily mean schooling.
00:17:24.460 I mean, I do mean schooling, but I also mean educate yourself on what came before you and what lessons history has to teach about your legacy and how you interact with the people around you.
00:17:39.700 I think that that's all.
00:17:40.600 And so a subset of educate yourself for me is be honest, because my history, my personal history or the things around me, that's kind of my number one ticket, I think, is trying to remain honest to myself and to the people around me.
00:17:58.380 And I think that that helps me lead a better life.
00:18:02.700 Well, Rich, thank you for coming on the show.
00:18:04.680 It's been a pleasure.
00:18:06.180 Absolutely.
00:18:06.680 Thank you.
00:18:08.020 Our guest today was Rich Sommer.
00:18:09.880 Rich stars in AMC's hit drama Mad Men as Adman Harry Crane.
00:18:14.760 And you can check Rich in action on Sunday nights on AMC's Encore Edition of Season 3.
00:18:20.360 Check local listings for airtimes.
00:18:26.220 That wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
00:18:30.420 For more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at artofmanliness.com.
00:18:36.800 And until next week, stay manly.
00:18:40.500 Thank you.
00:18:41.520 Thank you.
00:18:54.360 Thank you.