An environmentally-concerned minimalist in real-life, Mad Men’s Vincent Kartheiser couldn’t be much further apart from his on-screen persona. He plays Pete Campbell, a young, ambitious and scheming advertising executive on AMC’s hit ‘60s drama about a New York City ad agency.
“I think there’s plenty of me in Pete Campbell,” Kartheiser recently revealed to The Huffington Post. “People on the show like to say that I’m very different from my character, but what else are they gonna say? I play a really despicable, ugly character. To most people, that summation is what the character represents. So my co-stars don’t want to completely ruin my love life.
“I can relate with most of the things Pete does. I’m not saying I do them, but most of his actions – in those situations – are justifiable. I don’t think it’s that far off from what other people would do,” the 33-year-old continued.
Kartheiser also touched on the departure of the show’s Jared Harris, whose character Lane Pryce, a fellow partner of Campbell’s at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, hung himself in his office in the show’s June 3 episode. “We’re all going to miss Jar, and we all had the opportunity on set to tell him how remorseful we were that we wouldn’t be getting the opportunity to work with him anymore,” he recalled. “We all love his character portrayal every week – we really do.”
