Shortly after Don Draper met Dr. Faye Miller on Mad Men, market research consultant for Sterling Cooper Draper Price, she summed him up in about three sentences and turned him down flat. Now their love-making is breaking lamps. Actress Cara Buono, who played Michael Imperioli’s wife in the final season of The Sopranos, landed the part of Faye just two days after her first audition (when she was told she’d appear in “maybe three episodes”). She called us on Monday morning, having spent all of Sunday night playing poker at a benefit for the LAByrinth Theater Company. “Phil Hoffman came in first,” she said. “I came in third.”

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While Don Draper has continued to free fall on season four of Mad Men, the show’s women have exerted the kind of independence and power appropriate for their gender in the mid 1960s.

Although she’s only appeared on two episodes, Dr. Faye Miller is a prime example of the evolving female, as this market research analyst has stood up to Don on more than one occasion.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, actress Cara Buono spoke on the role, but remained mum on any Mad Men spoilers…

On the character: Faye Miller is self-made… she’s a psychologist and she’s a pioneer. As you know, it was hard enough to get a degree and be a professional at that time. You had to have a tremendous amount of tenacity and a competitive spirit… She’s very good at her job – she’s running a focus group, not group therapy. She’s trying to get information from these girls and knows how to change herself to get what she needs to get out of her job.

On seeing through Don: In the first episode Faye’s in, when she walks out of Don’s office she says “You’ll be married again within a year” and then apologizes for calling him out on his type. I think she can just size people up. She has a keen sense, because of what she does, of how people are and how they behave, which is similar to Don.

On how Faye brings out show themes: I thought something interesting in the last episode was when he calls her in after the focus group. He said something like “You can’t tell how people are going to behave based on how they have behaved. I think that’s such an interesting thing – can people change? You know, going back to ‘Who is Don Draper?’ Can Don Draper change? Do people really change deep at the core, or are they still hiding and pretending to change?

On the issue of marriage, then and now: I got married last July, when I was 35, and I’m sure it’s the same with your friends – it’s like even though we went to college and pursued those sorts of things, it’s still like: He’s 35 and he’s not married? What’s wrong with him?

It’s sort of a conversation that’s not going to change, and she recognizes that as being…  the truth. Why get angry about it? This is just the way it is. We’re not out here trying to change society; we’re trying to sell cold cream. I’m sort of fascinated with that, and how Don feels about marriage too – about his marriage devolving.

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