Long-time readers will remember, I used to adore Jon Hamm. Then we found out about his gross behavior when he was in a fraternity in college, and I sort of lost my crush. So do a lot of people. Around the end of Mad Men, Hamm also went into rehab and he left his longtime partner Jennifer Westfeldt. A few years later, he took up with Anna Osceola and they got married. I think one of the strangest parts of Hamm’s journey in the public eye is that we genuinely believed he was a throwback to an old-Hollywood movie star, and it turns out he was just a cliche frat-bro (at best) the whole time. Now that I’m not part of the Hamm fandom (Hammdom?), I can admit that I think it’s funny that his career has faltered so steadily post-Mad Men. He was supposed to transition from Mad Men into movie stardom and it hasn’t worked out that way in the past nine years. So Hamm covers the latest issue of the Hollywood Reporter and we should take this as his attempt to rebrand himself. The headline of the piece is “Jon Hamm Doesn’t Want to Be Your Leading Man.” Good? Because I’m over it. Some highlights:
He has vitiligo: “It’s waxed and waned. It’s a pigmentation thing. Michael Jackson had it. It affects the Black community significantly more because you have melanin in your skin and it goes away. But I remember waking up one day while shooting the pilot, and it looked like someone had dropped bleach on my chin. Then I looked at my hands and shins, and they had these patches on them. I went to see a couple of doctors, and they were like, “You can try this cream. We don’t really have a solution. But you’re white, it’s probably fine.” Which is what people have said to white people their whole life: “You’re white, you’re probably fine.”
His perspective on ‘Mad Men’ has changed: “You go through it and it’s happening to you — all the notoriety, the press, the fame. But it’s a thing where I look back on it, and I wish I would’ve paid more attention…because it’s happening to you so viscerally and it’s such a swirl all at once and there’s no guidebook, and you go, “Sh-t, man.” But it’s fun to be at the center of the conversation for our business. I’ve had a bit of that with Fargo. And it’s nice to be back in the conversation, to be part of something you’re proud of and that’s hitting people in a way that they want to talk about it.
He’s in therapy: “[I first went] After my dad died [a decade later]. My [half] sister was like, “You are spiraling. You need help.” And I was like, “No, I don’t. No, I don’t.” Then you eventually go, “Oh, yeah, I do.” And if you’re smart enough or present enough in your own feelings, you go, “This is actually tremendously helpful.” And that’s what it was. I went to therapy; I got put on Prozac and was pulled out of the spiral that I was in. I got my brain chemically altered, and I was like, “OK, this is clearly something that I needed.” I check in with it all the time. I’m still in therapy. I have a wonderful therapist. And I understand that when I’m — “distracted” is the wrong word, but when I’m not present — that’s when I can start to spiral into something that’s not healthy. And I go, “I don’t want to do that. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy.”
His thoughts on Matthew Weiner being accused of harassment: “That was a fun time with all of that coming down and going, “Where does anything fall? And are we allowed to have the conversation or is it just immediately shut down? And is it binary or is it a continuum?”… listen, there definitely needed to be a reckoning of some sort. But the binary situation felt very unhelpful because it was tarring a lot of people with a similar brush, where you’re like, “Oh, is that the same? Because it doesn’t feel like it’s the same at all.” I felt that with Aziz Ansari, like, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t feel the same as Harvey [Weinstein].”
He really was vying for roles that went to Matt Damon & Ben Affleck: “There was certainly a version of, “Is this what you want? Do you want to be Ben Affleck?” And I worked with Ben on The Town, and I was like, “OK, I get that, that’s a certain path, but I don’t know if I want that.” I love Ben, he’s a wonderful actor and filmmaker, but I was like, “I don’t know if that’s for me.” I wanted to do different things instead of just being a leading man, whatever that is. And I don’t know how different my career would have been, but I know it hasn’t been the traditional leading man thing. Maybe it’s because I am a little more quirky. I know I look like I should be that guy.”
He’s been talking to Marvel for a while: “It’s not like they were saying, “We want you to be Iron Man.” But there were a lot of conversations, and I’m still in those. I talk to the guys that run Marvel and DC. And I’m a comic book nerd. So, we’ll see. Even that part of the industry is changing… I’ve pitched myself for a couple parts of the Marvel universe, I don’t want to say what exactly, but it was a part of a comic book that I really liked. I was like, “Are you going to do this story?” And they were like, “Yeah, we’re actually thinking of that.” I go, “Good. I should be the guy.” So maybe it’ll work out.
A career he admires: “I look at a guy like Jeff Goldblum’s career — and I know Jeff a bit, we used to have the same therapist — and I’m just like, “God, how awesome to be able to do all the things he’s done.” He had his leading man phase, and he does Marvel and he’ll just roll through and steal the scene, and then he’s doing commercials and he’s funny as sh-t. I see him out and he’s happy. So, consciously or not, I’m modeling my life to be that: varied and happy and fulfilled.
So, I’ll backtrack a little bit and say that it’s not that Hollywood wasn’t into Hamm, it was a combination of Hamm not knowing which projects to do and Hamm not really having a plan for what should come after Mad Men. Clearly, there were some big offers or job opportunities and he just hasn’t taken them. A decade ago, people wanted him to be the next Ben Affleck and he was like, no, I’d rather be Jeff Goldblum? A character actor masquerading as a leading man.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of THR.