Rich Sommer

The worst job I ever had was as a telemarketer for, oh, I don't know, I think I made it about 90 minutes. I quit before lunch. I went in around 10:30 or 11 and said, 'I can't do this.' It was horrific. I had too many people yell at me within that 90 minutes to be able to continue.

Frankly, as much as I love to improvise, it hasn't been difficult to stick to the script on 'Mad Men.' The writing is so precise, and the story so carefully crafted, that I don't think there's room - or need - for ad libbing. I could never come up with dialogue as lovely as these writers do, anyway.

I was a temp for three years in New York when I was auditioning; when I was cast in 'Mad Men,' I was still a temp. I'm good at making copies; I'm good at typing things. I'm good at killing the day and making it look like I'm doing something.

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.

We exist in this weirdly schizo culture, where sex is everywhere in the media, and yet, at the same time, you don't sit down and have a conversation about what you did in bed last night with your friends. Despite the ubiquity of sex, it's still a taboo when it comes to day-to-day conversation.