{"id":165749,"date":"2025-12-03T10:45:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165749\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T10:45:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T10:45:10","slug":"jared-harris-on-learning-about-lane-pryces-mad-men-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/165749\/","title":{"rendered":"Jared Harris On Learning About Lane Pryce’s Mad Men Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jared Harris reveals how Mad Men<\/a> creator Matthew Weiner told him that he was killing off Harris’ character, Lane Pryce. Harris portrayed Lane in Mad Men seasons 3 to 5, and the British partner of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce took his own life in Mad Men season 5, episode 12, “Commissions and Fees.”<\/p>\n

Lane’s exit from Mad Men was a shock<\/a> and one of the most tragic events in the series. Lane took his own life after Don Draper (Jon Hamm) caught him embezzling funds (that Lane intended to pay back) and demanded his resignation. After a failed suicide attempt in his Jaguar, Lane hanged himself in his office.<\/p>\n

Appearing as a guest on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum<\/a>, Jared Harris detailed how Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner told him the bad news that Lane Pryce was being killed off. Harris also revealed his reaction that he “fell off my chair laughing” when Weiner broke down Lane’s fake-out suicide in his Jaguar. Read Jared’s quote below:<\/p>\n

“[Matthew Weiner] goes, \u2018Let\u2019s go back to my office.\u2019… I thought, \u2018Oh sh*t, have I done something? What\u2019s going on?\u2019 And then we were waiting for the lift. And Matt is one of the best conversationalists you\u2019ve ever met in your life. If you\u2019re sat next to him at a dinner party, you\u2019re golden. He\u2019s absolutely delightful, funny, incredibly intelligent, really knowledgeable. And we were standing waiting for the lift and he starts talking about the weather. And at that point, I went, \u2018Oh, f***. What the f***?\u2019<\/p>\n

And then we walk down the corridor, and we get to his room, and he goes, \u2018I\u2019ve got this really, really good, expensive brandy.\u2019 Would you like a glass?\u2019 And I go, \u2018Oh, for God\u2019s sake! What are you doing? Firing me? What\u2019s going on?\u2019 And he went, \u201cI\u2019m really sorry. I\u2019m not firing you. I\u2019m writing the character off. But it\u2019s a great episode. It\u2019s a really great scene.\u2019 And then he pitched it all to me.\u2019<\/p>\n

And when he told me the joke bit about [how] the Jaguar won\u2019t start, I fell off my chair laughing. Because I knew it was a brilliant setup. He\u2019s an incredible writer because that joke, the Jaguar not starting, made you think it wasn\u2019t gonna happen. Lane wasn\u2019t gonna kill himself. So he set it up that he\u2019s gonna kill himself, then he gives you a fakeout so you think that\u2019s been paid off, and then when he\u2019s hung himself, which he\u2019s told you all along is gonna happen, you\u2019re still surprised.”<\/p>\n

Watch Jared Harris on Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum below:<\/p>\n

Lane took his own life<\/a> because of his humiliation at being fired from Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Lane’s first attempt at suicide was by carbon monoxide poisoning in his new Jaguar, a gift from his wife, Rebecca (Embeth Davidtz), which only furthered Lane’s sorrow because it was a rare instance where his wife showed she was proud of him.<\/p>\n

Jared Harris enjoyed how Matthew Weiner’s writing toyed with audiences’ expectations, and that Lane not being able to take his own life in his Jaguar was a “fake out” that made viewers think Lane would realize what he was doing and choose to live. Instead, Lane returned to SCDP, typed up a boilerplate resignation letter, and hanged himself.<\/p>\n

\"Mad<\/p>\n

Lane Pryce was a popular character on Mad Men, and Harris’ uptight Brit often felt slighted by his fellow partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Lane felt unappreciated and was resentful that he was the only SCDP partner who didn’t become rich from forming their own ad agency.<\/p>\n

Mad Men is now available in 4K on HBO Max<\/a>. For longtime fans, it’s a way to appreciate Matthew Weiner’s Emmy-winning series in a new light, while new viewers can discover Mad Men for the first time. Just brace yourselves for Lane Pryce’s tragic exit at the end of Mad Men season 5.<\/p>\n

\"0373995_poster_w780.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Release Date<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t2007 – 2015-00-00<\/p>\n

Showrunner<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMatthew Weiner<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

\"Headshot<\/p>\n

Elisabeth Moss<\/p>\n

\n Peggy Olson\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jared Harris reveals how Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner told him that he was killing off Harris’ character,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-165749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}