Bryan Batt missed his first audition to play Salvatore on Mad Men (2007) because he and his boyfriend, Tom Cianfichi, already had a commitment to take their goddaughter, Ramsey Schmitz, to Paris to repay her for several things she had done for them during Hurricane Katrina (including evacuating Batt's mother from New Orleans). The "Mad Men" showrunners asked Batt to come in again, and so after the Paris trip he was able to audition and get the role.

[on his role of Salvatore Romano in 'Mad Men'] I've played tons of different characters and some are gay and some are straight. I thought the character description that Matthew [Weiner] wrote he is clearly gay to modern audiences, but in the 1960s no one knows. Basically, all I did was I had to play as straight as possible and monitor my movements, and how I held my cigarette. That was a little flourish that I could have fun with.