Jon Hamm is one of the best actors working today, regardless of genre. While he appears in big-screen projects like Bridesmaids, The Town, and Top Gun: Maverick, Hamm is a staple of marquee television series, having become a breakout star in AMC’s Mad Men. In the years since, Hamm has led numerous series and been a significant component in making shows like Landman and Your Friends & Neighbors so successful. He has returned in a key role on Apple TV’s The Morning Show, and I had the opportunity to discuss that role and his career.
Hey, Jon, how are you doing?
Jon Hamm: Hey Alex, how are you?
I’m great. I am a massive fan of yours. Very excited to talk to you today. Thank you so much for taking the time. I was actually watching the first couple of episodes of the new season of Landman, and it’s incredible how your absence from the character is such a specter on the show, given how fantastic Monty was in that first season. And here you’re coming in this series. You came in after it had already been established, had already been a couple of seasons, and then Paul came into the mix. Does coming into a show that’s already started and joining an ensemble, does that affect how you play a character, how you join the cast?
Jon Hamm: I don’t think it affects it so much, so it adds a little bit of pressure, especially if the show that you’re coming on to is a big hit. You know, nobody wants to be the Ted McGinley who comes in and kind of steals the show like Married…with Children, then takes a nose dive. Famous, no shade on Ted. I’m sure he’s a wonderful guy, but that was sort of what had happened over the many shows in the ’70s and ’80s. So, you want to come up and join the show, and you want to be value-added. We were fortunate to have that with guys like Jared Harris on Mad Men. You know, you want people to come in and be a character that people really like. So I think the fact that I’m getting asked back, but also that the audience seems to have really responded to my character in The Morning Show, and we’ve had a great time doing it, you know? I think those are, those are the hallmarks so I don’t really do anything different or try to adapt, really, to the show. I feel that if they hired me, they want me to do what I do and do it at a high level, making the show better. That’s what I try to do.
There has been a recent trend among some of your characters being incredibly wealthy, and we’ve seen a lot of shows lately that follow this pattern, where the characters are incredibly rich. We love watching them behave badly or fail. Does that alter how you play the character at all? Because I know that with Your Friends & Neighbors, it took a twist on that performance, where it showed the other side of that dynamic, but this character in The Morning Show is at a different echelon of wealth. Does that alter anything for you?
Jon Hamm: Well, like I said, it doesn’t really alter anything. You play the character and the part you’re given. I always think that every actor should never try to be their character and judge the character they play. I certainly never did that with Don Draper, who was, in many ways, the king of questionable moral decisions, and Paul Marks is no exception to that, nor is Coop. You know, Coop is a person who often finds himself in situations that are sometimes not of his own making, and sometimes are. And I think it’s very self-reflective. You know, we have a running voiceover about how conflicted his feelings are about all of this, especially the lavishness of the life he leads and the ridiculous extremes he has to go through to maintain it. I think that’s what the show really is about. So you know, with someone like Monty, that his unfortunate arc was that, you know, he lost his life pursuing the high stakes and the high stress of wildcatting and gas and oil exploration. You know, there’s the wonderful scene in the first season where Jerry Jones reminds him that, you know, all of this stuff can come and go in a minute, but family will stay with you forever, and they’re the ones you’re going to be there on your deathbed. And of course, that’s what ends up happening. So, you know, it’s a it’s that’s what drama is, and you can’t come at it with any kind of judgment, or else the audience will pick up on it and it won’t read, it won’t read true.
With The Morning Show, I think, compared to, well, many of the projects you’ve been involved with, this is one of the most stacked casts of any of the projects you’ve been a part of. You’ve had so many phenomenal actors you’ve worked with, dramatically, comedically. Is there anyone in The Morning Show that you haven’t shared the screen with whom you really want to or are looking forward to?
Jon Hamm: Marion Cotillard. Our characters never really crossed paths, and I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time. I wish I had gotten to work with Holland Taylor’s character. I love her work. I think she’s phenomenal. I know her a little bit personally. She and Sarah are good friends of mine, so yeah, when it was a cast this deep, you look at Boyd Holbrook and William Jackson Harper, I’m actually working with Will on my new product, American Hostage, here in Winnipeg, but when you have a bench this deep, yeah, there are quite a few people that you really wish you got a chance to be. Still, you can’t feed that many mouths. You know, I can only imagine it’s much harder for the writers to actually try to get everybody good stuff to do.
Is there anybody that you’ve worked with that you have been starstruck to work with, either on this series or any of your recent projects?
Jon Hamm: I would say the only person that I was honestly flabbergasted to work with, well, there were probably two. One was Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick, and the other was Jeff Bridges in Bad Times at the El Royale. Those guys were both pretty, pretty big up in my superstar echelon, and getting to work with him was a real treat in every way. And I’m really glad I had both of those experiences.
There have been so many movies and television series that you’ve done, and everybody keeps talking about the golden age of television, or that we’re in this, this great moment with shows, and Mad Men was one of the ones that helped kick that off. Do you still feel that the bar for television is as high as it has ever been? Or are you seeing a shift back towards more big-screen fare for you?
Jon Hamm: For me, I, I go where the interesting work is, you know, and sometimes that’s on in features, and sometimes that’s on television, and sometimes that’s an animation, and sometimes that’s a podcast that I’ll produce and turn into a limited series. So, you know, there are a lot of ways to get things in front of people these days, and I think that really helps everybody. You know, rising tide kind of lifts all boats in that, in that world, and we’re living in pretty, pretty excellent, a pretty fantastic time for people who like, who like, for what used to be called TV.
I think every performance that you give, there’s a elements of it that strike me differently each time. We see something like Fargo, which was a character that was just very dark compared to a lot of things you don’t like. Maybe one of the darker roles that you’ve done, and with Your Friends & Neighbors, there are so many layers to cope with, and it’s just such a beautiful series to watch. And I love watching all those things. Is there a character that you’ve portrayed that you just felt physically drained after playing that role like it was just it took so much out of you to play the character.
Jon Hamm: Fargo was a lot of that. A big part of it was being on location by myself, up in Calgary for a long time, away from my then fiance, now wife and family and and Calgary in the winter is punishing on a good day, which is why I’m wondering why I’m here in Winnipeg in the winter shooting another project, but that’s a story for another day. But it’s, it’s difficult. You know, being on location is difficult. Being away from your family is difficult. It’s lonely. It’s it’s, it’s it’s hard. And if you’re playing a character that doesn’t necessarily represent joyful energy, then that makes it exponentially more difficult. So that was, that was a really, that was a really tricky one to play, but I thought it came out great. And, and, and that’s the wonder of acting, you know, is that you can have a really challenging time making something it can, and you can end up making something really great. So that’s what I’d also like to do. So I still love going to work. That’s really what it’s all about for me.
One last question for you is that, despite being in so many really great dramatic roles and hilarious roles, people are still shocked when you do something as funny as it is. And I think that there are times when you’ve been more humorous than dramatic, and then vice versa. Is there any interest in joining a series that is 100% comedy-focused? Is that something that intrigues you?
Jon Hamm: Sure, if it was the right, you know, group of people and the right kind of thing, I’ve recently done a movie that should probably come out at Sundance, that I think is a pretty, pretty hardcore comedy, but I had that experience working on 30 Rock. I had that experience working on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. You know, I’ve definitely had those experiences. Those are very fun, and it’s enjoyable to do goofy, silly things for a living for a while. 30 Rock remains. To this day, one of my favorite experiences I ever had. It’s because I got to come back and keep doing it and get more and more silly and ridiculous, to the point where by the end of it, I had two hooks for hand. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a goof to be able to do that. It’s fully part of the arsenal and definitely a series of colors in our crayon box that we get to use for our art. So if the right opportunity presents itself, you know, I would, I would love to
The Morning Show is now airing its fourth season on Apple TV.
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