Mad Men star Jon Hamm fights Don Draper’s shadow
Ihad only two or three questions for Jon Hamm. I wanted to know if fame had rattled him. I wanted to know if, more than two years ataoho r t
“Cora was the best,” he says. “I was scheduled to fly in at 8 o’clock in the morning, and she passed away right before I got there. It’s been a real hard 24 hours for both me and Jen.” A long pause. “She was 17. She brought a lot of love and a lot of good times to me and other people and Jen, and she’ll always have a real sweet place in my heart. I could go on for three hours about Cora, and I won’t, because I’ll just be a mess.”
He takes a sip. “What is this coffee, Grumpy? That’s the one from Girls, right?” he said. He studies the frownyface logo on the cardboard cup. “I’m a big dog fan. They’re the best. They make life better, although they’re hard to deal with. But complications in life are actually what make it fun. If it wasn’t raining today, you know, whatever, I’m glad it rained. And the more people you meet—I’ve had the incredible fortune to meet amazing people, sometimes out of dumb luck, but mostly out of being famous for 10 minutes on a TV show. I could listen to Lorne Michaels tell stories for a hundred years. And he wouldn’t run out. Mike Nichols. Diane Sawyer. Marlo Thomas. Patti LuPone. Meryl Streep. And then friends of mine, also.”
In this category he mentions Jon Stewart and Hannibal Buress, whom he had seen perform the night before as part of Dave Chappelle’s run of shows at Radio City Music Hall. He also notes his Mad Men colleagues Elisabeth Moss (“Lizzie”) and John Slattery (“Slatty”), the directors Greg Mottola and Edgar Wright, and Rosamund Pike (“Roz”), his co-star in High Wire Act, a yet-to-be-released thriller written by Tony Gilroy.
“Like, how are we friends?” he says. “How did I get here? I’m from Nowheresville, Missouri. But it was instilled in me from an early age: Why not you? Just because you’re x-y-z from Nowheresville doesn’t mean you’re nothing.”
Show business is filled with good-looking people. The ones who make a mark have emotional depth. In Hamm’s case, the mystery, the charisma, the sense he gives audiences that there is more to him than just a strong jaw probably has something to do with his childhood.
“When you’re a kid, you’re just not equipped to deal with some of the stuff that life brings you,” he says. “It’s why you have parents. And then, when you don’t, there better be somebody who fills in that gap, or you’re going to be rudderless for a while.”
I bring up the rehab stint. Did it give him a chance to reset himself?
He replies in almost a whisper: “Recalibrate. Re-evaluate. Just sort of re-establish where you are. You’re coming off of this Tilt- a-Whirl that’s going 9,000 miles an hour, and so many things have come unfixed. If you think about navigation, you’re trying to stare at a fixed point. When you navigate to something that’s whirling, it’s difficult. It’s all a learning experience. It’s all about growing older and getting better at living. And I hope I did.” THE INDEPENDENT
I find forgiveness to be really healthy. Just being a mother is making me a big, weepy mess.