Jon Hamm Gave Himself Five Years to Make It in Hollywood
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Year Plan Jon Hamm gave himself five years to make it in Hollywood. With the fourth season of Mad Men currently under way and his new film, 5The Town, premiering this month, he’s finally o≠ the clock. By Jessica Jones 32 AMERICAN WAY SEPTEMBER 1 2010 SEPTEMBER 1 2010 AMERICAN WAY 33 This page (inset): Jon Hamm on Mad Men. Opposite page: Hamm and co-star Blake Lively in The Town. A lot can happen in five years. ive years ago, no one would have paid Jon Hamm any mind when he walked into this cozy Los Angeles–area breakfast joint. Sure, womenF may have looked twice; face it, the guy is stop-the-spoon-on-the-way-to-your-mouth handsome — six feet tall, trim, sporting a five-o- clock shadow at 9 a.m. and a mop of black hair that grazes his forehead just so. Men may have sat up straighter in their seats so as not to be (too) outdone by the charismatic stranger. But their attention would just as quickly have been diverted when the next good-looking Hollywood wannabe came through the door. ¶ Today, though, it’s a di≠erent story. When Hamm, dressed in dark jeans and a blue T-shirt layered under a gray hoodie and navy jacket, slips quietly into this Los Feliz eatery — just minutes from the home he shares with his longtime girlfriend, actress Jennifer Westfeldt, in the LA neighborhood — conversations amm was born 39 years ago in stop short and are replaced with hushed murmuring. Eyes dart in H St. Louis to Dan, a businessman, and his direction, and knowing smirks spread across faces. The veteran Deborah, a secretary, who divorced when he waitstaff isn’t fazed, as Hamm is a regular here, but the waitress in was 2. A “precocious” child, he was raised training can’t help but stare. primarily by his mother, who stressed the Because today, Jon Hamm isn’t just anybody. Today, he’s Jon importance of education to her only son from Hamm: star of Mad Men and this month’s new film The Town; an early age. But when he was 10, Deborah Golden Globe winner; two-time host of Saturday Night Live; voice died of cancer and he was sent to live with his of Mercedes-Benz; one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive and a father; up until then, Hamm had seen him GQ Man of the Year; face of a network; unwitting fashion icon; and only every other weekend. His father also had all-around Most Wanted Man in Hollywood. two daughters from a previous marriage, and But just five short years ago, he was filling his résumé with one- Hamm was suddenly forced to share a roof off TV guest spots as a doctor on Point Pleasant, a cable guy on The with one of them, who still lived at home. “It Sarah Silverman Program and a doctor on CSI: Miami. Five years was,” he says understatedly, “a very strange before that, he’d landed his first-ever professional acting gig: a one- thing to have happen at that age.” episode appearance on Providence that turned — thanks in part to As a teenager, Hamm attended John Bur- series lead Melina Kanakaredes’ pregnancy and in part to Hamm’s roughs School, a prestigious liberal-arts prep on-screen spark — into a 19- episode arc that led Hamm to finally quit school that laid the cobblestones for the path his day job waiting tables at LA’s Ciudad restaurant. he would eventually take. “You had to take But now, even with all his recent success, Hamm knows he isn’t drawing, you had to take sculpture, you had far from those days when he was taking orders for tips. Geographi- to take industrial design — you had to take cally, at least. all this stuff. You didn’t have to take it for the “The parking lot of the studio where we shoot Mad Men is where rest of your life. You just had to try it once,” I parked my car for the last restaurant I worked in. Same place; dif- he says. ferent circumstances,” he says, grinning. “I have a better parking Hamm tried, and excelled in, a lot of place now.” things — baseball among them — but one 34 AMERICAN WAY SEPTEMBER 1 2010 SEPTEMBER 1 2010 AMERICAN WAY 35 of the things he found he enjoyed most was formerly known as American Movie Classics bathroom products), people were surprised Men gig to living close to Griffith Park, certainly be happy and excited about it, but the fact that, as his 30 Rock co-star Tina Fey acting. When he enrolled at the University — was rebranding itself around the show. — everyone except those who know him well. where his shepherd mix, Cora, can run that’s not the right way to do it.” once joked, he’s so good-looking, you have to of Texas in 1989, he abandoned both, choos- Naturally, the network wanted a big name to The self-described “comedy nerd” — who as around, chasing hawks and snakes. He seems One gets the impression from talking to “poke a hole in a paper plate to look at him, ing instead to focus on more, well, leisurely build their flagship scripted drama around; a kid used to go to the library to check out genuinely dumbfounded by his recent string Hamm that despite his astronomical rise like an eclipse.” He still cops to having nerves pursuits. (“That was when Roger Clemens Weiner didn’t. He was firm on the fact that albums by Bob Newhart, Bill Cosby, Steve of good luck. When asked how he manages over the last few years, he’s exactly the same over the success of Mad Men, even though was playing at UT,” he says of his decision not his antiheroic protagonist — a mysterious, Martin and George Carlin — counts Sarah to stay humble, he recalls the first time he guy he was when he was taking lunch orders the buzz and chatter swirling about the show to play college-level ball. “I was, like, I don’t smooth-talking, philandering Madison Av- Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, “Sports Guy” hit a home run. at Ciudad 10 years ago. He plays baseball continue to grow with each season. think I’m at that level.”) enue ad executive named Don “I was probably in 10th grade,” he says. “I on an adult rec-league team (albeit one cap- “It always feels like no one’s going to tune The fun came to an end his sophomore Draper — would be better if he hit it over the fence, out of the park — and tained by Casey Affleck). He still roots for his in,” he says. “I don’t think that ever goes away, year when his father passed away. An or- were played by someone the au- it was off one of the senior pitchers. And I home teams, his beloved St. Louis Blues and especially for a show like ours. It’s one thing phan at the age of 20, Hamm went back to dience didn’t already know. freaked out. I did everything but, like, do Cardinals — although now he gets invited to to be in a franchise or procedural show where his home state to finish out the remainder Though it took seven audi- cartwheels around the bases. I was like, ‘Oh play in all-star celebrity contests, like he did … something bad happens in the first act, of his college career at the University of tions, Hamm eventually beat out my God! I can’t believe I hit a home run!’ I last year at his hometown ballpark, Busch they try to find it out in the second act, and Missouri. There, he returned to the stage — more than 80 other actors for was running and screaming and, like, high- Stadium, and again this year in Anaheim. In they figure it out in the third act. Our show is performing in some 12 plays — and then to the role. But getting the job was fiving myself — like, justfreaking out. And I what little downtime he’s got, he and West- a little different, so there’s very much a sense the schoolyard, teaching drama for a year at the easy part. Hamm admits got back to the bench and my coach was like, feldt stay in and watch The Daily Show, The of: Are people going to get this? Are they John Burroughs as a way to say thank you to to wearing more on his frame ‘Don’t you ever, ever do that again. What is Colbert Report and American Idol. Or he’ll going to like it? A lot of people are tuning the professors and to the place that had given that first season than the stylish wrong with you?’ And I was like, ‘Did you see play tennis, a game he picked up out of sheer in because the show is sexy — if we dial that him so much. slim-cut suits preferred by his that?!’ It came from such a pure place. But competitiveness. element down, is that going to turn people Still “wickedly depressed” over the death character; he had on his shoul- he was like, ‘Don’t do that. Inside. [Points to “I have an athlete’s will to get better at off? And what’s happening with Don and of his father and with little family left in St. ders the fate of a series — and of his chest] You can do that here.’ So I guess something,” he says.