Have you heard about this show on AMC called Mad Men, about a reptilian account executive at an advertising agency whose life is complicated by his outsized professional ambition and awkward interpersonal skills? Most likely, you’re much more familiar with the version of Mad Men that centers on a handsome philanderer, whose strong jawline you’d recognize anywhere, even if he were strolling around Manhattan without underpants one fine day.
Maybe it’s because Mad Men is populated with characters more genial and attractive than Pete Campbell, but in a recent interview with Salon, Vincent Kartheiser revealed that he has never, ever been recognized out in public. While the world can’t stop recognizing Jon Hamm or Christina Hendricks, the unctuous Vincent Kartheiser and his shaved-back hairline stroll through the celebrity-obsessed streets of Los Angeles in utter anonymity.
Asked if the reason he’s never been recognized had anything to do with all the spiffy Mad Men costumes, Kartheiser admitted that the real reason nobody’s ever pointed him out in a crowd is probably because nobody cares about not-Don Draper Mad Men characters:
It’s the costumes and also no one’s walking around looking around for the number six on a TV show. I don’t do the covers of the magazines and nobody actually knows my real name. Seriously. Most of the shops I go to in L.A., there’s five or six bigger actors there than me and people actually know who they are. I mean, maybe I’ve been recognized, but nobody has actually come up to me and said anything to me. I’ve never had that experience in my entire life. I’ve been with other people who’ve had it. It must be strange.
Vincent Kartheiser is sad Pete Campbell in real life, just walking around, not being recognized by electroshocked Alexis Bledel.
[Salon]