Jon Hamm and the rest of the "Mad Men" cast have become notorious for their anti-spoiler policy in interviews, handed down from show creator Matthew Weiner.
"There are things that I do that I think increase people’s anticipation," Weiner said in a recent Q&A with The Daily Beast. "Not telling you anything is one of them."
It's an ideology that the cast seems to have taken to heart, as Hamm demonstrated during a recent roundtable interview with online press ahead of the show's Season 6 premiere.
"I find it interesting that we've become the standard-bearer for this idea of being secretive, and ... I'm a TV fan, I watch a lot of TV shows; I don't see anybody talk about their season at the beginning of the season. No one does," Hamm pointed out. "It's not like they came out on 'Homeland' and said 'Oh yeah, by the way, here's how it's gonna end -- tune in!' And yet, we're the people who are known as the cryptic secret keepers of all time."
For Hamm, as for Weiner, it appears that the cast is conscious about ensuring that viewers enter the show with as little information as possible in order to heighten their enjoyment. "I think obviously, part of experiencing television, especially in the media landscape that we live in now, is that it's so easy to have the experience be spoiled," Hamm said. "You click on the wrong link or you're reading a thing about [how] maybe there's going to be an 'Arrested Development' movie, and then you see the other links and you go 'Ooh, "Mad Men!" Click' and then it's like an episode summary and you go, 'No, I haven't seen that! What happened? I didn't wanna know that -- I just wanted to know about the Bluths!' And so, it's so easy to disseminate that information instantly and globally, so I think we just try to be careful."
He continued, "We don't want anybody that wants it to not have that experience of seeing it at their own pace. And you can watch TV on your phone now and you can watch it in your car -- please don't, by the way ... and it's personal for people, and I think that people that like the show, like the show, and they want to watch it how they want to watch it."
Hamm pointed out that it's especially important for fans who might not discover the show until after the fact -- something that he has some personal experience with. "I was a late adopter of 'The Wire,' I started with Season 5 and then I watched Seasons 1 through 4 on my phone on a movie set over the course of about two weeks," he said. "It didn't lessen the experience for me because I hadn't read anything, and this was in a pre-Twitter era, I think ... I still am in a pre-Twitter era, but it was just as real for me because I had heard that it was great but had never heard any of the specifics. So I think we can hope that people come to the show however they come to it, but they get to experience it without it being spoon fed to them or told 'oh you have to watch this one and this one, and this is why this means something.' Who wants that? Then it's like homework."
The two-hour Season 6 premiere of "Mad Men" airs Sun., April 7 at 9 p.m. ET on AMC. Come back to The Huffington Post for more from Hamm and co-star Elisabeth Moss ahead of the show's return.
Do you think that spoilers ruin the experience of watching a show, or do you wish the "Mad Men" cast were a little less tight-lipped? Weigh in below!
