Pete Campbell

Pete Campbell arrives at Sterling Cooper as a junior account man with a good name and no patience for waiting his turn. Ambitious, entitled, and quick to sniff out advantage, he schemes for accounts and status while resenting anyone above him, especially Don Draper, whose talent he envies and whose approval he craves.

Kartheiser plays Pete's ugliness without flinching—the petulance, the casual cruelty, the wounded ego—while letting flickers of real insecurity and longing show through. The writing refuses to let him stay a simple villain, complicating him season by season until his awfulness becomes oddly, uncomfortably human.