JOHN SLATTERY was wary of "blacking up" for his role in hit TV show MAD M EN - but went through with the difficult scene after realising he had "no choice" if he wanted to carry on in the series.
The actor plays ad agency boss Roger Sterling in the 1960s-based drama, and had to have his face darkened with make-up for a potentially controv ersial scene at a party, at which his politically incorrect character san d a song about slavery.
He admits he was reluctant to go through with it due to the historic im plications of white men portraying African-Americans on screen, but agree d to shoot the scene after a discussion with his co-star Jon Hamm.
Slattery tells Britain’s Culture magazine, "(Director) Matt (Weiner) to ld me last year, ‘There’s a sort of party at the beginning, and I’m gonna have Roger sing My Old Kentucky Home in black face.’ I was, ‘Oh, terrifi c.’ It wasn’t until I got in the car on the way home that I said, ‘What t he hell did he just say? Black face?’ "When I first read that script, I thought, ‘I don’t wanna do this, I re ally don’t wanna do this’. So I called Jon Hamm and I said, ‘Would you do this?’ And he said, ‘Do you mean, would I do it, or would I (as characte r Don Draper) do it?’ So I thought, ‘I don’t really have any choice’.
"You sign for the character, and he’s the logical messenger for that. Y ou can’t do some of the things my character has done and then decide you don’t want to do that one."
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