Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner wrote the pilot episode of his show about 1960s advertising execs way back in 1999, only to have it rejected by pretty much every cable outfit in the world. But now that it's a gigantic, critic-worshipped hit on AMC, he's not about to let anyone muck it up. "Matthew Weiner stood on the set of his hit show, 'Mad Men,' ready for his close-up in extreme anxiety. He was watching the rehearsal of a scene that seemed fine to me, better than fine, but his staccato commentary was a scene in itself. 'He should be standing,' he said of an actor who was seated. 'That should be on the table,' he said of an accordion folder that an actress had placed on the floor. 'They're overreacting, paying too much attention to each other.' He heard himself and looked slightly sheepish. 'You'll see it turn from theater to movie in the next take,' he told me. "I want them not to pay too much attention to each other, so it feels real, more perfunctory. Not that TV thing.' His smile was wry. 'I'm very impatient.'"

Weiner (pronounced WHY-ner) is the creator and show-runner of "Mad Men," which means the original idea was his: he wrote the pilot; he writes every episode of every show (along with four other people); he's the executive producer who haggles for money (he says that his budget is $2.3 million per episode and that the average budget for a one-hour drama is $2.8 million); and he approves every actor, costume, hairstyle and prop. Though he has directed episodes, most of the time he holds a "tone meeting" with the director at which he essentially performs the entire show himself so it's perfectly clear how he wants it done. He is both ultimate authority and divine messenger, some peculiar hybrid of God and Edith Head. "I do not feel any guilt about saying that the show comes from my mind and that I'm a control freak," he told me. "I love to be surrounded by perfectionists, and part of the problem with perfectionism is that by nature, you're always failing." [NYT]