Slattery was originally asked to read for the part of Don Draper but it turned out to be a ploy to get him in for the audition. “They never thought of me for the role.” So he was tricked in? “Yes – it was a little confusing at first because I didn’t know what Roger would turn out to be.” In the past he has admitted that he was disappointed. “I got over it quickly,” he says today. “When I saw Jon [Hamm] I went ‘Oh OK, I get it now’.” Does he ever think about what the show would be like with him in the title role? “It would not be on the air,” he says with immediate self-deprecation. “Or it would be a radio play.” He admits he has grown fond of Sterling: “The thing I like about this character is just when you think of him as one thing, he starts down another road – whether it’s the LSD [he takes the drug in season five, with comic results] or realising that his second marriage is not what he thought it was going to be.”