Why Vincent Kartheiser Thought His Mad Men Character Was So Miserable

Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is perhaps the most divisive main character on "Mad Men." Whereas Don and Roger's immorality is at least balanced out by their ungodly levels of charisma, Pete is too sullen for a lot of viewers to stomach. While many "Mad Men" fans did eventually come to root for Pete, it would take several years and several inches of his hairline for him to win them over. 

In a 2024 interview with GQ, Kartheiser explained how he always sympathized with his character, even when seemingly nobody else did. "I don't think he's a bad person, but I also think that his default need for reassurance and need to have someone give him that respect and to give him his pride made him selfish," Kartheiser explained.

Pete has a problem shared by nearly everyone on the show: His idea of himself doesn't quite fit with how society sees him. "He has these ideas of himself, but often we're formed by the role we take in other people's eyes," Kartheiser said. This may be why Pete is at his most abrasive in Season 1, when he's obsessed with being a creative person. Not only is he stepping on Don's toes at work, but he briefly attempts to be a short story writer even though it's clearly not a fit. It's only when Pete embraces his role as an accounts man that he starts to mellow out. But even then, he's not quite happy.

Kartheiser summed up what he saw as a major difference between Pete and the other main characters: Pete can't find his life purpose in his work. Both Peggy and Don are regularly exhilarated by a successful creative pitch — some of the show's best episodes center around their ad ideas — but what does Pete have to be excited about?

"He just never really connects with his job like that, and so he is always looking outside, whether it's in his personal life, or deep within his own psyche or his family life," Kartheiser told GQ. "Very few of us are blessed enough and lucky enough, if we're being honest, to fall into something that gives us a sense of purpose." Pete has a lot of low points over the show, but in a 2012 interview with TVLine, Kartheiser pointed to Season 5, where Pete is beaten up by Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) and left crying in the elevator, as a particularly depressing moment.

"You accomplish things you think you always wanted only to realize they are valueless, and that you may have spent your entire life pursuing something that actually means nothing. And that can be very hard to deal with," Kartheiser said. Pete's journey to happiness would have to come not from his job, but from fully embracing his relationship with his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be until the final season that he truly learned that lesson.

By "Mad Men" Season 7, Pete's become sort of the opposite of Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), a guy who starts off likeable and transforms into a jerk. But long before Pete can turn things around, he does something in Season 3 that seemingly kills any chance of his redemption. He pressures the neighbor's au pair into sex, in a move that certainly reads to most viewers as rape but which the writers reportedly intended to be consensual.

Of course, even if it was consensual, it still reflects terribly on Pete; he's cheating on his wife and feeling sorry for himself afterward. The awful, uncomfortable sequence is the result of Pete once again trying to be someone he's not. Instead of trying to be a creative, here he's trying to be a seductive bachelor like Don — the big problem, as Vincent Kartheiser once told Vulture, is that Pete has "no skills of seduction whatsoever, no charm at all."

In his attempt to be Don Draper, his actions here just make him and everyone around him miserable. Granted, in an interview with Slate, showrunner Matthew Weiner pointed to it as a positive development in his marriage in the long-term. "They'd sort of grown into each other," Weiner said about Pete and Trudy (Alison Brie). "Especially after he had slept with the au pair and Trudy basically says, 'You're not going to do that anymore.' And he says, 'You're right.'"

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available. Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).