Jon Hamm
"Still A Mad, Mad Man"
While Jon Hamm started out with a film background in movies like Kissing Jessica Stein and We Were Soldiers, it was television that gave him his big break, first on the Lifetime series The Division and then more prominently, on the AMC drama Mad Men as Don Draper.
The role has garnered Hamm three Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award win for Best TV Drama Actor. After success in the hit remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still and a memorable, Emmy-nominated guest stint on the NBC comedy 30 Rock as Liz Lemon’s neighbor and love interest Drew Baird, the 39 year-old actor hopes to parlay his TV acclaim firmly into film with a role as Adam Frawley, an FBI agent pursuing a group of bank robbers, in the crime thriller The Town.
He talks about how he chooses his film roles, now that he’s established himself as a TV star.
“I don’t have any sort of calculus to choosing film roles,” Hamm believes, “I just responded to the story of this and really wanted to play the character. I read a very, very, very early version of this script when another director and another package was attached to it and didn’t necessarily respond to the story then.”
“Once Ben signed on, then I became much more interested as a fan of his first film and a massive fan of this one,” he adds, “No, I just try to pick parts that somehow inspire me creatively and I want to work with people whose work I respect and admire and in both of those cases, both of those boxes were checked for this project.”
Hamm succinctly described for us the experience of working with second-time director and co-star Ben Affleck
“I mostly take notes with whatever Ben says,” Jon states.
Jon also commented on a question posed to fellow TV-based co-star Blake Lively, who is best known for playing Serena van der Woodsen on the hit CW TV drama Gossip
Jon Hamm
"Still A Mad, Mad Man"
Girl about whether she was betting with show co-star Penn Badgeley. This being that Badgeley also has a film role in The Town’s competing film coming out, the teen comedy Easy A about who’s film will be more successful.“I have a bet with Penn Badgeley on who’s movies will open bigger and I hope I win,” Hamm claims.
Hamm talks about how he researched his role as Adam Frawley.
“Researching the character, it was a tremendous advantage to be able to hang out and talk to several of the law enforcement officials at Boston at the federal level, at the state level, and at the local level,” Jon describes, “And what they do is a tremendous achievement. It’s a collaboration between all three levels of law enforcement and they do amazing work.”
“They’re a lot of robberies in Boston and a lot of them get solved because of these guys’ hard work,” he adds, “So it was nice to see from the inside how clear their objective is, their job is to stop bad people from doing bad things. They’re very clear on that, so that was very helpful to me.”
Being as The Town is set in Boston, Jon notes that perfecting the accents was particularly key.
“I had a very easy time with my accent on the film, which was nonexistent,” Hamm says, “Walking around Boston is a pretty good accent coach. There is various incendiary versions of the Boston patois that you can pick out and find. And I think [co-star] [Jeremy] Renner and I had a blast exploring those particular vocal coaches, I don’t know.”
Hamm shared with us how his life has changed with the success of Mad Men, which has become one of the most critically acclaimed TV dramas in recent years.
“My life has changed significantly since the success of Mad Men and it’s been a very exciting ride and it’s been a very strange time, strange times indeed” Jon says of it, “But I
Jon Hamm
"Still A Mad, Mad Man"
get to work with some tremendous people and opportunities come a little easier now that the profile has gotten a little broader, so I’ve been very fortunate and very happy.”Jon also acknowledges however that the road to success, like for his co-stars in the film, have been met with a few drawbacks.
“None of us would be here if we all didn’t have fairly thick skin,” Hamm notes, “As an actor, especially as a struggling actor starting off, you get rejected more often than you get accepted. My road to this place is a lot more longer and twisted than some, so most of acting is about being rejected, so I’m sure everyone has a story of walking into an audition room and just failing horribly and I’m certainly no exception.”
Hamm is particularly adamant though that regardless of how successful he becomes as an actor, he’ll believes he’ll never be the triple threat of actor, screenwriter, and director that co-star Ben Affleck is.
“I can’t write,” Jon believes, “I can’t focus long enough. I find it terrifying and my girlfriend now going on 13 years is a writer and producer and now is going to direct her first feature in the fall and is an accomplished actress as well, but I watch her do that stuff. I don’t know how [Ben] focuses like that. I have the attention span of like a hopped-up squirrel. I can’t focus on one thing longer than anything else.”
