Indie-film fans might best remember him as the sweet-faced drug rat taken under James Woods's and Melanie Griffith's tainted wings in Larry Clark's Another Day in Paradise, but Vincent Kartheiser says that the film feels like it was made in another lifetime -- he was still a teen during filming, and it was 10 years ago to be exact. The 28-year-old actor has always had a knack for playing uncharacteristically tempestuous roles (he also played the son of sexy vamp David Boreanaz on a later season of Angel), but his current one, the well-bred young ad exec and philandering hubby Pete Campbell in AMC's critically-acclaimed Mad Men (created by former Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner), may be his most provocative guise yet, even with the clean-cut coif and smart suits his character wears in the show which is set in the early '60s. "Advertising went though such a revolution at that time," he enthuses. "New mediums like television allowed these guys to sell people stuff they didn't even know they wanted. These guys were rock stars." Kartheiser says his Mad Men role has been the most rewarding thing he's ever done. "Being part of this show from the beginning, I've been able to grow with the writers," he explains. Like The Sopranos' mob milieu, the advertising agency is only a backdrop for the dramatic introspection. "It's really about the loneliness of life."