OK! Interview: John Slattery

On the award-winning show Mad Men, John Slattery stars as Roger Sterling, a skirt-chasing, booze-swilling executive at a 1960s ad agency.

But, cautions the actor, even though the show is set in a vastly different business world than today's, don't assume that the overly ambitious, scheming characters on the show are mere relics.

“I think people are still just as filthy-minded as they were then," the Emmy-nominated actor explained to OK! at the Writers Guild Awards in New York. "Only you just can’t act on it now.”

In fact, the 46-year-old feels that it's this dark, conniving side of humanity that audiences relate to. “I’m being glib, but I think what anybody responds to is that it’s truthful and it’s universal," said John. "These are people who are thinking the stuff people are thinking today.”

And John has the stats to back his theory up — In just two seasons on AMC, Mad Men has wrangled three Golden Globes and six Emmys. Though it's set in the hustle and bustle of the ad biz, the topics being dealt with — adultery, prejudice, sexism — are universal.

“It’s just a really well-written show,” Slattery, who is married to George Clooney's first wife Talia Balsam, told OK!. “And I think the cast felt similarly that we didn’t do the show because it would be a huge success, we did it because we liked the writing.”?

Mad Men, which also stars Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, January Jones and Vincent Kartheiser, begins filming its third season in May.

By Laura Lane