Jon Hamm talks sex scenes, Mad Men with Playboy
“The minute you start modeling your love life—any part of your life, actually—after Don Draper, I think you’re in trouble,” advises Mad Men star Jon Hamm to fans of his character Don Draper in Playboy’s April Interview (issue on newsstands and i.Playboy.com Friday, April 16, with the complete interview available at www.playboy.com/hamm). The Golden Globe Award winning actor— who currently stars in the movie Friends With Kids, in theaters now—sat down with Playboy contributor Eric Spitznagel to discuss getting injured on the set of Mad Men, why he isn’t like Don Draper, kids, and what his worst day job has been.
Following are selected quotes from the interview:
On how many times he auditioned for Mad Men: “It was at least six, so I had every level of opportunity to be humiliated. [Show creator] Matt [Weiner] tells this story now that he knew I was perfect for Don Draper after the first audition. My response to that is, Well, I wish he had f*cking told me. It would’ve made me feel a lot better.”
On finding out about his role as Don Draper: “We were riding down in the elevator, and the woman in charge of making the decisions said, ‘You probably know this by now, but you’ve got the job.’ In the elevator with us was Franz Beckenbauer, who was a pretty famous European soccer player in the 1970s. He’s a coach or manager or something now. Literally the moment they told me I got it, the elevator opened and the lobby was filled with photographers. The lights were flashing and people were rushing toward us, shouting, ‘Oh my God, oh my God!’ … I was still on the adrenaline rush of getting the part. But nope, it was just some excited Germans who wanted to meet their soccer hero.”
On getting injured on the set of Mad Men: “I’ve gone to the hospital twice. [laughs] I know, I know, it’s embarrassing. During the first season, a piece of the set fell on my head and I got seven stitches. I think it says less about the show than it does about my durability and age.”
On the hedonism theme on the hit AMC show: “I think we’ve tried to portray that lifestyle accurately. A three-martini lunch is fun in theory. And it’s fun to look cool while you’re staring out of windows, drinking scotch and smoking. But the reality is, if you have a three-martini lunch, you don’t get much done in the afternoon. And if you stare out the window and smoke too much, you get f*cking lung cancer.”
On getting free drinks because of his role as hard-drinker Don Draper: “I’m a big tab getter. I’ve been the beneficiary of other people’s good fortune for a long time in my life, so I feel it’s karmic payback. But I’ve definitely had people offer to buy me drinks. It kind of comes with the territory when you play a hard-drinking character on TV. It’s never a bad thing, at least for guys. If you’re a girl, it would probably be a bit creepy and weird if strangers kept trying to buy you drinks. But for guys it’s usually just some bro who wants to say he did it.”
On his philosophy on life: “Sometimes it doesn’t play out the way you’d like. I’m not a big ‘everything happens for a reason’ guy, because that suggests there’s way more order in life than I think there is. But things happen, and there are consequences. And life is dealing with those consequences.”
On the worst day job he’s ever had: “I did set dressing on some soft-core porn films. That was hands down the worst. I was working on the crew from seven to seven, and it was horribly depressing. … I’m sure there are more terrible day jobs in L.A., but it’s definitely on the lower end of the spectrum of the wonder of moviemaking. It wasn’t even that much money, but it was money.”
On the longest job he’s ever held: “Waiting tables was a part of my identity. I’m comfortable behind a bar, and I’m comfortable wearing an apron. There will always be restaurants and bars. There’s no possible way to wreck that with e-commerce. Restaurants and bars are some of the last truly safe businesses left.”
On becoming an actor: “I think anybody who chooses any kind of career in the arts—and I’m using that term loosely for what I do—comes from a place of being a little bit unmoored…Go to any theater department in the country and it’s usually made up of the outcasts and the misfits and the orphans. It’s the Island of Misfit Toys. It’s welcoming.”
On his struggles getting into Hollywood: “I called Paul Rudd, who I knew from college, and said, ‘I’m going to ask this only once, because I don’t want to be that guy. I need a favor. Can you give me one person to call who will take my call?’ He gave me a number, and that meeting turned into another meeting, which turned into another meeting. The dominoes started falling and I eventually got an agent, and then I didn’t work for three years and my agent fired me.”
On one of his famous early friends: “Zach [Galifianakis] is monumentally famous now, and he’s still the same guy I’ve always known. I look at him and say, ‘This thing happened to you.’ And he just smiles back at me and says, ‘The same f*cking thing happened to you.’ I don’t see it because I’m looking outward rather than in. But it is true, and it’s funny.”
On his sex scenes with Kristin Wiig in Bridesmaids: “It’s like running in the rain. There’s a certain point where you go, ‘F*ck it, I’m already wet. I’m not going to get any less wet, so I might as well just enjoy how this feels.’ I mean, sure, there’s an awkwardness about being in a weird flesh-colored thong, bouncing on top of an actress. And I am not a small human being. I weigh at least 200 pounds and I’m six-foot-two. And Wiig is a twig; she’s a skinny little thing. I told her, ‘Just punch me in the side if I’m hurting you.’ It’s weird and uncomfortable at first, but then all the awkwardness melts away and you think, All right, we’re doing this, so let’s have fun with it. … You’re in that moment and it’s happening and it’s not going to get any better, so you might as well enjoy it.”
This story was originally published March 18, 2012 at 9:03 PM with the headline "Jon Hamm talks sex scenes, Mad Men with Playboy."