The actor had just left a meeting with show creator Matt Weiner and ""top brass"" at the Hotel Gansvoort in New York when a TV executive he was riding the elevator with told him the big news.

He tells Playboy magazine, ""In the elevator with us was Franz Beckenbauer... (and) literally, the moment they told me I got it (part), the elevator opened and the lobby was filled with photographers. The lights were flashing and people were rushing toward us, shouting, 'Oh my God, of my God!'

""For a split second, I was still on the adrenaline rush of getting the part (and thought the commotion was for me). But nope, it was just some excited Germans who wanted to meet their soccer hero.""