It’s tough to decide whether John Slattery is best-known for his shock of white hair, his indisputable air of self-possession – or Roger Sterling’s trademark glass of vodka. Having successfully played WASP-ish roles on the likes of Mad Men, Desperate Housewives and Sex And The City, he’s now proving he has another very impressive string to his bow – and a desire to explore small towns like his own home neighbourhood in Boston. His directorial debut God’s Pocket is coming to cinemas this month, features Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his last big screen outings and establishes the 51-year-old as a filmmaker of real substance.

Slattery had wanted to adapt Peter Dexter’s novel for over a decade; drawn to both the book’s dark humour and its tragic but also farcical portrait of a man (Hoffman) trying to muddle through the death of his stepson and the impending demise of his marriage. Set in a community where everyone knows each other’s business, it’s a by turns violent and tender examination of life in a small town.
“I just loved that tone, and the humour,” the director nods. “It’s very dark and heartbreaking, but it’s also vicious and violent and dark and funny. And I understood the people; I grew up in a small town. I think a by-product of that is that you can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes, because they’ve all seen you; they know you. So there’s a truth that inevitably wins out – but having to face that truth means you have to push to get what you want, whether that’s restoring to violence or whatever. There’s a quality of hard edges and tough truths that makes people ready to face the music. To me, it always lent itself to humour, because the people who blow their own horn are always the ones who end up getting it!”
For Slattery, there’s a personal draw to this material. Raised one of six in an Irish Catholic family, acting was not in his blood. With a sports mad leather-merchant father, wanting to study theatre was an alien concept but, in the great Irish tradition, slagging sure wasn’t.
“They just took the piss out of me,” laughs John, a hint of a Boston accent creeping into his speech. “My uncle used to call me ‘Barrymore’! Without fail they’d take the piss about anything. They definitely reminded me of the characters in God’s Pocket, who’d be smart-assed even when terrified – humour’s the ultimate defence, and I recognised that in the tone of the book.”
Slattery was forced to wait years for the rights, and in the interim cut his teeth directing five episodes of Mad Men. This experience not only inspired him to cast co-star Christina Hendricks in God’s Pocket, but also gave him the confidence to doggedly pursue his cinematic vision.
“It wouldn’t have been the same film had I not directed Mad Men,” he admits. “It teaches you so much. And really, all the anticipation is the worst bit – the worrying, the ‘what if this goes wrong?’ So I got that fear out of my system with Mad Men.”
Directing a few episodes of the award-winning show also gave actors the confidence to work with the debut director, and God’s Pocket features fantastic turns from Richard Jenkins, Caleb Landry-Jones and John Turturro. But the most beautiful performance – and now, the hardest to watch - comes from the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, who shockingly died from a drug overdose in February. Tender and funny onscreen, he brings an irrepressible sense of decency to a character just trying his best to muddle through. And it appears that off camera, he was as giving and generous as one would expect.
“He was inclusive, and disarming, and intelligent – and so refreshingly concerned about the film, not just his performance in it. He didn’t want his performance to stand apart from the film. It wasn’t ego-driven, ever. He told me what kept him coming back was working with other actors – like, he told me how excited and intimidated he was to be working with John Turturro. He wanted everyone to have as three-dimensional a character as he had, because that would serve the film. I’ve just never seen anyone so well suited to what they were doing as he was.”
Hoffman obviously felt the same, saying in an early interview for the movie that to do his best work, he had to fall in love with his directors a little bit – something that happened quickly with Slattery. John exhales heavily.
“God. Yeah. It makes it all the worse now, that he’s gone. I find it hard to watch the film – I’ve only watched it once or twice. In a way, it ruined the whole thing. And I know his passing obviously has a bigger impact than this movie – it’s his family, it’s his life. None of it is what I had in mind. I was looking forward to sitting with him and promoting the film. He’s just… missing. And it’s difficult.”
Slattery is also preparing for the final episodes of Mad Men to air, but admits that after ten years, he’s ready to leave Roger Sterling behind.
“I’m okay with being finished, and I’m okay with not knowing what’s coming next. That hasn’t been the case for a while – first I didn’t have anything, then I didn’t have any insecurity about working. But it’s nice, having the future wide open. I’d like to direct more, and I’d like to find a story I liked as much as God’s Pocket. Honestly, both TV and film are becoming so creative and intelligent now that I haven’t lost too much sleep over it.”

God's Pocket is in cinemas now.