It’s hard to remember 2007. The world was pre-iPhone, mostly. AMC was a channel that played old movies with too many commercial breaks. Then came a guy in a gray suit, staring at the back of a head in a bar, and everything shifted. When we talk about the season 1 Mad Men cast, we aren't just talking about actors who got lucky with a good script. We are talking about a lightning-in-a-bottle moment where a group of mostly unknowns—at least to the average person flipping channels—became the definitive faces of 1960s existential dread.
Honestly, it shouldn't have worked. Jon Hamm was a guy who had been a struggling actor for years, nearly hitting his "quit date" before landing the role of Don Draper. January Jones was a model-turned-actress who people thought was too "ice queen" for leading roles. But Matthew Weiner, the show's creator, saw something. He saw the cracks. That’s what makes the first season so visceral. It isn't just about the suits or the Lucky Strikes. It’s about the people underneath the wool and the hairspray.
The Alpha and the Omega: Don Draper and the Season 1 Mad Men Cast
Don Draper is the sun that every other character in that first season orbits. If Jon Hamm doesn't nail that performance, the show dies in three episodes. You've got this man who is basically a walking lie. In the pilot, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes," we see him as a creative genius, a philanderer, and a family man, all within forty-five minutes.
It’s the nuance that kills you. Hamm plays Don with this specific kind of 1950s masculinity that was already starting to rot by 1960. He’s smooth, sure, but there’s a flicker of panic in his eyes whenever anyone gets too close. That’s not just good writing; it’s an actor understanding that his character is a hollow shell. The rest of the season 1 Mad Men cast had to react to that void.
Take Peggy Olson. Elisabeth Moss was coming off The West Wing, but she looked completely different here. She was the "new girl." The ponytail, the awkward skirts, the way she flinched when Pete Campbell looked at her. Moss played Peggy with a quiet, terrifying ambition. While everyone else was focused on Don's swagger, Peggy was the one actually learning how the world worked. She wasn't a victim. She was a sponge. By the time we get to the season finale, "The Wheel," Peggy has undergone a physical and psychological transformation that honestly anchors the entire series.
Pete Campbell and the Ivy League Chip on the Shoulder
Vincent Kartheiser’s Pete Campbell is arguably the most underrated performance in the early years. He’s the guy you love to hate, but you also kind of feel bad for him because he’s so desperate for approval. He represents the "new" money—or rather, the old money that’s losing its grip.
In season 1, Pete is the antagonist, but he’s a pathetic one. He tries to blackmail Don about his past (the whole Dick Whitman revelation) and fails miserably. Why? Because Bert Cooper, played by the legendary Robert Morse, doesn't care. "One never knows how loyalty is born," Cooper says. It’s a chilling moment. It shows that in the world of Sterling Cooper, morality is a secondary concern to the bottom line.
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The Women of Sterling Cooper: Beyond the Secretarial Pool
If you think the season 1 Mad Men cast is just a "boys club," you weren't watching closely. Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway changed the way we look at power in the office. Joan wasn't a partner, but she ran that floor. She knew where the bodies were buried. Hendricks brought a physicality to the role that was commanding, but she also showed the exhaustion of having to be "on" 24/7.
Then there’s Betty Draper.
People were really hard on Betty back then. They called her cold. They called her a bad mom. But look at January Jones’s performance in season 1 again. She’s playing a woman who is literally suffocating in a beautiful house in Ossining. The shaking hands? The incident where she shoots the neighbor’s pigeons? That’s a mental breakdown in slow motion. Jones captured that "feminine mystique" frustration perfectly. She was a bird in a Gilded Cage, and the cage was Don Draper’s shadow.
The Supporting Players Who Built the World
The depth of this cast is insane when you look back.
- John Slattery as Roger Sterling: He was supposed to be a minor character, but Slattery was too good. The chemistry between him and Hamm created the backbone of the agency's culture.
- Bryan Batt as Salvatore Romano: A tragic figure. The closeted art director trying to navigate a world that didn't have a place for him.
- Michael Gladis and Aaron Staton: Paul Kinsey and Ken Cosgrove. They represented the different flavors of advertising ego—the pseudo-intellectual and the naturally gifted golden boy.
Why the Casting Director Deserves an Emmy Every Day
Kim Miscia and Beth Bowling, the casting directors, didn't go for "TV pretty." They went for "period-correct complicated." They found actors who could sit in silence. That’s the secret sauce of Mad Men. Most shows are afraid of silence. In the first season, there are long stretches where no one talks. You just watch Don stare at a slide projector or Betty stare at a wall.
The season 1 Mad Men cast had to communicate through subtext. You can see the gears turning in Harry Crane’s head (played by Rich Sommer) as he realizes that television is the future of advertising, not print. You see the heartbreak in Maggie Siff’s Rachel Menken when she realizes Don is just another man who wants to run away from his problems.
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Rachel Menken is a crucial part of season 1. She was the only one who really saw Don. She was an outsider too—a Jewish woman running a department store in a world of WASPs. Their brief, doomed romance is the emotional high point of the early episodes because it’s the only time Don seems even remotely honest.
The Realism Factor: No One Was a Saint
Modern TV often falls into the trap of making characters "relatable" by making them "good." Mad Men didn't do that. Pete Campbell was a creep who took advantage of his position. Don was a serial liar. Roger was a hedonist.
But because the season 1 Mad Men cast played them with such humanity, we stayed. We didn't want them to be better; we wanted to see what they would do next. The realism came from the flaws. It’s the way Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge Daniels) represented the beatnik counterculture that was starting to bleed into the corporate world. It’s the way the black elevator operators and cafeteria workers were treated as invisible—a stark, intentional choice that reflected the era’s systemic racism without being "preachy." It was just there. It was the reality of 1960.
The Legacy of the First Season
When the finale of season 1 aired, "The Wheel," it changed TV. The "Carousel" pitch is often cited as the best scene in the whole series. Don uses his own "perfect" family photos to sell a product, all while his real family is falling apart at home. The way Jon Hamm’s voice cracks just slightly—that’s the moment the show went from "good" to "classic."
The season 1 Mad Men cast set a standard for "prestige TV" that few shows have hit since. They didn't rely on explosions or cliffhangers. They relied on a look, a sigh, or the way someone held a glass of rye.
How to Appreciate Season 1 Today
If you’re rewatching or seeing it for the first time, don't just watch the plot. Watch the background.
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- Focus on the eyes. These actors do more with their eyes than most do with a five-minute monologue. Look at Peggy when she’s promoted to copywriter.
- Track the power shifts. Notice how Joan’s posture changes depending on which man is in the room.
- Listen to the rhythm. The dialogue has a specific cadence. It’s not fast like Sorkin; it’s deliberate.
The season 1 Mad Men cast taught us that the most interesting things happen in the spaces between words. They showed us that the American Dream was often a nightmare wrapped in a high-end suit.
To truly understand why this cast worked, you have to look at the historical context of 2007. We were on the verge of a massive recession. The "Golden Age" of the mid-century was being viewed through a lens of skepticism for the first time on a massive scale. The cast acted as a bridge between our nostalgia and our cynicism.
If you want to dive deeper into the technical side of how these performances were crafted, look into the "Meisner technique" which many of the cast members utilized. It’s about "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances." That’s exactly what happened on those sets. They didn't just play 1960; they lived it, cigarettes and all.
Check out the "The Art of Mad Men" books if you want to see the costume and set design that helped these actors get into character. Janie Bryant, the costume designer, basically used the clothes as armor for the season 1 Mad Men cast, and it shows in every frame.
Next Steps for the Mad Men Enthusiast:
- Watch the Pilot and the Finale of Season 1 Back-to-Back: Notice the subtle weight gain in Peggy (intentional for her pregnancy storyline) and the hardening of Don’s features.
- Research the "Carousel" Pitch Origins: Learn how the writers developed the most famous monologue in the show’s history and how Jon Hamm prepared for that specific day on set.
- Observe the Background Actors: Many of the "office extras" in season 1 were instructed to act as if they were actually working, which adds a layer of kinetic energy to the Sterling Cooper scenes that feels remarkably authentic.
The season 1 Mad Men cast didn't just give us a show; they gave us a mirror. A dusty, smoke-filled, slightly cracked mirror that still reflects a lot of what we struggle with today: identity, ambition, and the lies we tell ourselves to get through the day.