Zosia Mamet Recounts Getting Berated On The Set Of One Of The “Biggest” Shows on TV – Was It ‘Mad Men’? 

Zosia Mamet shared an excerpt from her upcoming book of essays Does That Make Me Funny? that seemingly alludes to why she abruptly left “one of the biggest shows on television.” Was it Mad Men?

Years before Mamet rose to fame as Shoshanna Shapiro on HBO’s zeitgeist-defining Girls, the actress starred in several episodes of Mad Men Seasons 4 and 5 as Joyce Ramsay, which some speculate aligns with the timeline of her essay.

In the excerpt, published by The Hollywood Reporter, Mamet recounts her experience starring in – and eventually quitting – an unnamed, award-winning show when she was 19. She described feeling “so lucky” that she was invited back for more episodes, but her stint on the show was cut short when the series creator and showrunner berated her on set during a rehearsal. Mamet did not name the showrunner in question in her blind item style excerpt, but if it is indeed Mad Men, she could be talking about Matthew Weiner, who was later accused of sexual harassment by one of the series writers.

Mamet said her first day on set turned out to be “a success” despite the fact that she was forced to get a drastic bob haircut for the role with barely a moment’s notice. “While the nerves didn’t entirely wear off and there were still bumps along the road and the other actors definitely kept to themselves quite a bit, it was still a thrill and I loved every second of it,” she wrote.

But during one particular rehearsal where she had to remove images from a manila envelope, the showrunner — not the episode’s director, mind you — yelled, “Cut,” and questioned her acting.

“What the fuck are you doing?” the “showrunner” reportedly asked before grabbing her hand and adding, “No! What the fuck are you doing with this! That’s not how you take something out of an envelope! Do it again!”

Mamet wrote the showrunner was “full‑out screaming” at her and forced them to do it again until “he gave up or got bored.”

According to Mamet, the showrunner “spewed” several criticisms every time they repeated the scene: “I don’t understand — when I cast you, you knew how to act… I’m honestly confused at how you can be so bad at this… Did you forget how to act, Mamet?”

The actress said she finished filming for the day then proceeded to quit, despite having four more episodes to shoot.

“I walked to my car and called my agents and told them I quit,” she recounted. “I told them I didn’t care what they had to do, I didn’t care if the network sued me, I refused to go back on that set for one more day than I actually had to.”

Later in the essay, Mamet admitted she “resented” the showrunner after the show “swept” the Emmys a few years later.

“But you know, he hasn’t really made anything since,” she wrote, “Sometimes I think about him sitting in his office alone feeling sad and angry and anxious and wondering if everyone’s forgotten him, and for a moment it makes me feel sorry for him, feel compassion for him, hope that his life isn’t too bad…But let’s be real, only for a moment.”

Again, we can’t be sure that this excerpt is indeed referencing Weiner, but Mamet’s “he hasn’t really made anything since” definitely tracks with Weiner’s post-Mad Men resume. Weiner created, wrote, and directed the 8-episode series The Romanoffs for Prime Video in 2018, which fizzled after one solitary (and reportedly very expensive) season. According to IMDB, he does not have any writing or directing credits since.