"Mad Men": Fab Q&A with Matthew Weiner

In preparation for Sunday's "Mad Men" season two finale, hop on over to Season Pass to read Kathy Lyford's fascinating Q&A with "Mad Men's" main man, Matthew Weiner.

Weiner loves nothing more than talking about his baby. In the excerpt below, he's responding to a question about how much of the Don Draper saga he had in his head eight years ago when he first wrote the spec script that was the crucible of this marvelous, Emmy-winning series.

"I told Jon (Hamm) the whole story before last year started. He was the only one I told, except for the producers, of course. And I told Jon about the brother and how the genealogy works and what kind of childhood it was and where he was from. There were a lot of these people. It’s an American story. You know mountain (folks), or whatever it is, coming to New York and shedding the whole thing. That’s the American dream on some level. Even though I didn’t finish the movie I did know where it was going. And I feel lucky to have that consistency and the audience can see that it’s not just being spun as it goes along."

Here's another interesting interview with Weiner that just came into my inbox. It's Weiner talking about the Jewish characters in the series, and it's just been posted as a podcast on Nextbook, a non-profit org dedicated to promoting "the discovery and discussion of Jewish literature, culture and ideas nationwide."