When you got the part did you know that Don Draper had taken the identity of a dead soldier in Korea or was that revealed to you as the scripts were written?

It is a little bit of both. Matthew [Weiner] pretty clearly had it set in his mind, and he kind of let us know in broad strokes how our characters would be developed as the show went on.

And even though he's very successful at his job, Don's not a very happy person.

No, he's not. I think that is one of the larger questions the show tries to ask about American people, American men, American society. Here is a guy who has everything literally and he doesn't seem very happy. So what does that mean? What do we take away from all of that? This country was founded on the pursuit of happiness but it wasn't founded on the pursuit of Cadillacs and country homes and perfect children.

So if you have all of those things that advertising men have told you will make you happy and yet you are not happy, what does that tell you about advertisers? What does that tell you about yourself? I think that's one of the more resonant themes of the show.

And of course he always lives in fear that his past will be uncovered.

I think that is the big part of what informs his daily life. He has got a lot of secrets, and he has to make sure people don't find out about them. Someone was saying Don Draper doesn't need a face-lift because he's wound tight already. That is kind of a big part of his daily existence.

The new season starts...

July 27. Sunday at 9 p.m.

And it's set a couple years in the future?

We don't pick up right where we left off. I am not sure of the exact time line. You will be able to tell that pretty immediately because our characters are in fairly different places from where we last saw them. Over the new 13 episodes we find out what transpired from when we left off to where we are now.

How many cigarettes are smoked on the series in a single episode?

They are all fake cigarettes but you are lighting something and inhaling it. So there's no nicotine and there's no tar. But you are still inhaling a burning something. I think we're single-handedly keeping this fake cigarette company in business.