Zosia Mamet has revealed the real reason she quit a high-profile TV show.

The Mad Men actress walked out and refused to return to set after an alleged dressing down, she revealed in her new essay collection, Does This Make Me Funny?.

"The scene was short and easy," Zosia, 37, wrote. "I was meant to come into the office, tell everyone I had photos of something important, remove them from the manila envelope I was carrying, and place them on the table."

However, she explained, the showrunner took issue with the way she opened the envelope, asking, "What the f**k are you doing?" and, "That's not how you take something out of an envelope! Do it again!"

After they tried to rehearse the scene "again, and again, and again", the unnamed showrunner carried on screaming at her, Zosia wrote.

"He starts off just raising his voice, which escalates to yelling, which eventually mutates into full-out screaming," she said. "Eventually he gave up or got bored."

Zosia added she left at the end of that day and did not return.

"I was supposed to do four more episodes that season," she said, "but... I didn't care if the network sued me, I refused to go back on that set."

Despite not directly identifying the series, fans were quick to note Zosia had a scene corresponding to her description in season five of the drama series, Mad Men.