John Slattery

“Shampoo, written by Robert Towne and Warren Beatty and directed by Hal Ashby. Robert Towne was on the staff of Mad Men in the last season or two seasons and I got to hang out with him. I asked him how long it took to shoot and he said 75 days, which is, you know, in modern filmmaking, that's a lot of days. At some point they laid over the Nixon Election over the story because Warren wanted this, he knew he had a moment and he knew he could make what he want. I love this movie.”

“Here's a movie, No Country for Old Men, which I think... I worked with Mike Nichols once and he said that every stick of furniture, every piece of clothing, everything you put into the movie should add to the telling of the story. And I feel like this movie does that. Just every single thing about this film I think is just masterfully executed. These guys are at the height of their filmmaking abilities when they made this.”

“This movie here is maybe my favorite screwball comedy, of which I'm a great fan. Leo McCarey and The Awful Truth. Leo McCarey didn't like the original script and rewrote it a bunch and had a piano on set that he would sit at when he wasn't sure what to do. It was the first time that Cary Grant had improvised. It's some of the most inspired comedic acting that I've ever seen. Both of them are great in it.”

“Here's a movie by the great Stephen Frears called The Hit. It starts out small, it's shot in Spain, the production gets bigger and bigger. It's sort of a chase and it's about a hitman who loses nerve and starts to examine his conscience and it's full of amazing performances. There's a scene in it where Tim Roth goes into a bar and gets a couple of beers to take with him and gets made fun of by a bunch of locals. It's a great film, really, really well done.”

“There's a movie that I go back to a lot. I directed a couple movies, one was called God's Pocket and it was inspired by this, The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Peter Yates is a guy who to me is remarkable in his breadth of field. And Mitchum is unbelievable. I come from Boston, so a lot of old Boston is here. There's an entrance that he makes through the... He steps up to the window of a diner and that's the first time you see the reflection in the window of Mitchum. It's a great film.”