Finding his ideas in dreams

In “Mad Men,” AMC’s much-lauded series set in a 1960 New York advertising agency, Don Draper, the agency’s creative director, gives advice to Peggy, the ambitious new woman as she tries to think up ideas for her first ad campaign. “Stop thinking about it,” he tells her, “and suddenly an idea will pop up.”

The line was just one of many references creator Matt Weiner used to show how creativity works in a commercial world. In “Mad Men’s” first season, which concludes Thursday, the men arrived late to work, left early, smoked, drank, conducted affairs in the office and conversed in elevated, irreverent, sometimes dangerous banter. They produced more bad ideas than good.

Creativity is “a process, and you can’t force it,” Weiner said. “Creative people need some leeway. They do drink. They do show up late. And they do have deadline problems. And you see this over and over.”

Weiner said he felt rewarded for his observations when a consultant on “Mad Men” “confirmed my suspicions about advertising -- that it is exactly like television.”

In fact, so much of his own experience and observations are in the show that friends assumed he must be Don. Although he’d like to be, he said he really is Peggy. “I am the new girl. I’m always surprised. I’m always a step behind. I’m always doing what I’m told. And being sorry for it.”

Weiner, 42, honed his craft writing jokes and scripts for network comedies (“Becker,” “Andy Richter Controls the Universe”) before he joined HBO’s cultural phenomenon “The Sopranos” as executive producer and writer.

He worked on “Mad Men” on his own time for seven years. “The hardest part is believing in something that can’t happen. If you told me it might take seven years for this thing to get on the air, I might have given up.” In the show, his characters fail, but he said he also tries to show there are rewards for great ideas.

Weiner grew up in L.A. and graduated from USC’s School of Cinema-Television. Though he was a poor student, he said teachers and a beloved immigrant uncle provided what he called “tiny moments of encouragement that basically said, ‘Go your own way. You will be rewarded.’ ”

Weiner was inspired by such writers as J.D. Salinger and John Cheever, such films as David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet” and Steven Soderbergh’s “sex, lies, and videotape,” and such television shows as “Seinfeld” and, naturally, “The Sopranos.”

On “The Sopranos,” Weiner said he was so in awe of creator David Chase that he “studied him like a stalker. . . . When I got to the job of being the show runner and had to think of the stories, I was really scared. He said, ‘Think of it like jazz.’ I was like, right, there are no bad ideas, it’s all about how you execute them. And you don’t have to go find something that no one’s ever done before.”

Weiner had trouble pinpointing where he got the idea for “Mad Men.” When he saw the 1964 comedy “Dear Heart” on television, a film about two strangers hooking up at a hotel convention, he said he knew that was a story he wanted to make. It would be a way to tell the truth about ‘50s-era relationships -- that they were far from the prim, innocent images perpetrated through advertising and shows such as “Ozzie and Harriet.”

Similarly, his own creative life hasn’t always been smooth. Around 1990, he recalls, “I had written a derivative version of ‘La Dolce Vita’ in Los Angeles. It was about a publicist.” Six months later, he had stopped writing, gained 30 pounds and was severely depressed. He worked his way out, he said, by raising money to make his own film, “What Do You Do All Day?” Finding a solution in creative work that told the truth as he experienced it, he said, “changed my brain chemistry.”

Now a self-described social writer in a collaborative medium, Weiner said he sometimes depends on others’ opinions, including wife Linda and a writing assistant. But because he’s also sensitive to criticism, it can be tricky. AMC’s critical notes aren’t polite, he said, and he can get angry. “I have a very particular way of doing the show, and I think I know better. I didn’t want to work at NBC. I came here so I could have creative freedom. I was promised that.”

But, he acknowledges, the AMC execs “help steer me away from some really bad ideas.” For instance, he wanted to reveal Don’s past in small flashbacks over the season. He wrote a new episode when they convinced him that he was losing his main character by trying to keep his private life too hidden.

Like the writers on his show, Weiner has his own methods of opening the floodgates to let his imagination flow. Creative solutions come to him in his sleep, he said. He also takes “panic naps” during the day. “I suppose the way other people drink, I’ll take a nap. Napping is also procrastinating too, let’s not pretend. I delve into research. I pull books off the shelves at the library. I sit and stare into space.

“I’ve had great ideas in the gym. In New York, I would just walk all the time. I would just walk and be inundated with ideas. They just sneak up on you.”

Instead of noting them down, he calls his phone number and leaves a message.

At those times, it feels like his ideas are coming from outside himself. He said his therapist told him to remember that they’re coming from him. “I said, ‘Well then, I’m psychotic.’ She said, ‘Well . . . ‘ “

Weiner is interested in his process but wary of speaking about it. “I do not want to question this. I do not want to wake up and find it gone. It took me an hour to explain where this idea came from. I just don’t know. There’s nothing more mysterious than that.”

lynn.smith@latimes.com