Jon Hamm

• 1. Introduction

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  Jon Hamm was once judged too handsome for the role that made him famous. Alan Taylor and Matthew Weiner, the creator of Mad Men, first thought exactly that when they considered the American actor from St. Louis, Missouri. The part was Don Draper, and it would bring Hamm a long list of awards. Before that came years of struggling for work, and before those years came a childhood marked by loss. How does an actor so many people overlooked end up leading a prestige drama? What does he do once the show that made him is over? And what does the rest of his career say about the man behind Draper?

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• 2. St. Louis Beginnings

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  Jon Hamm was 10 years old when his mother, Deborah, died of colon cancer. He had been born on the 10th of March 1971 in St. Louis, Missouri. His mother worked as a secretary, and his father, Daniel, managed a family trucking company. The couple divorced when Jon was two. He grew up with his mother in the suburb of Creve Coeur. After her death he moved in with his father and grandmother in nearby Normandy. His father died ten years after his mother, when Jon was 20. The family was of German, English, French and Irish descent, and the surname came from German immigrants. Hamm was raised Catholic.

  Hamm's first stage role came in first grade, when he played Winnie-the-Pooh. At 16 he was cast as Judas in the play Godspell. He enjoyed it but did not take acting seriously. At John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, he joined the football, baseball and swim teams. He also dated Sarah Clarke, who later became an actress. Ivy League and Division III NCAA football programs recruited him, yet after graduating in 1989 he enrolled at the University of Texas.

  At Texas, Hamm joined the Sigma Nu fraternity. In November 1990 he and seven other students were arrested over a violent hazing attack that severely injured a fellow student. Hamm admitted the crime, which included lighting a student's pants on fire, under a deferred adjudication plea deal. The charges were dismissed once he completed probation.

  The University of Missouri was where he landed next. There he answered a theater company's advertisement for players in A Midsummer Night's Dream and won a part. Other roles followed, including Leon Czolgosz in Assassins. After graduating in 1993 with a BA in English, he returned to his former high school to teach eighth-grade acting. One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who became an actress. Years later, Hamm would appear in her Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

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• 3. Years of Waiting

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  In 1995 Hamm moved to Los Angeles for good, because he did not want a "normal career." He shared a house with four other aspiring actors and waited tables between auditions. He also worked in theater, playing Flavius in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens with the Sacred Fools Theater Company. Work was scarce, partly because he looked older than he was. The William Morris Agency represented him, but in 1998, after three years without an acting job, it dropped him. He kept waiting tables and, briefly, worked as a set decorator on a softcore pornography movie.

  Hamm gave himself a deadline of his thirtieth birthday. He later said: "So I gave myself five years. I said, if I can't get it going by the time I'm 30, I'm in the wrong place. And as soon as I said that, it's like I started working right away."

  In 2000 he won the role of romantic firefighter Burt Ridley on NBC's drama Providence. A one-episode contract stretched to 19 episodes, and he could finally quit waiting tables. That year he also made his feature film debut, delivering one line in Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys. Larger parts followed in the independent comedy Kissing Jessica Stein in 2001 and the war film We Were Soldiers in 2002. He turned 30 during the filming of the latter.

  From 2002 to 2004 he played police inspector Nate Basso on Lifetime's The Division. Smaller parts came on What About Brian, CSI: Miami, Related, Numb3rs, The Unit and The Sarah Silverman Program. Eric Ladin, who later acted with him on Mad Men, said he admired Hamm for staying persistent until he succeeded.

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• 4. Becoming Don Draper

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  More than 80 candidates were considered for Don Draper, the protagonist of AMC's Mad Men, and in 2007 the job went to Hamm. The series is set at a fictional advertising agency on 1960s Madison Avenue. Draper is a suave, married, philandering executive with an obscure past. Hamm was surprised to be chosen. He had expected the producers to want a more established name. He believed that if another network had made the show, an actor with a proven track record would likely have won the part. He went through numerous auditions, and each time he explained to the casting directors what he could bring to the character.

  Weiner eventually decided, "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part." He also sensed that Hamm had lost his parents early, a loss that echoed Draper's own backstory. Hamm in turn drew on memories of his father. He has described Draper as a well-dressed, influential man hiding great inner turmoil while the world around him changes beyond his control.

  Mad Men premiered on the 19th of July 2007 to almost 1.4 million viewers. A loyal audience grew, and Hamm drew strong reviews. Robert Bianco of USA Today called his work "a starmaking performance," and Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe called him a "brilliant lead." In 2008 Hamm won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series, Drama. He was also nominated that year for a Screen Actors Guild Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. Nominations for all three returned in 2009, and a third Golden Globe nomination followed in 2010.

  The series ended its seven seasons on the 17th of May 2015. On the 20th of September 2015, after 12 nominations for acting in and producing the show, Hamm won his first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

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• 5. Beyond Madison Avenue

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  The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the 1951 film of the same name, was Hamm's next film role in 2008. Reviews were mixed, but it earned $230 million worldwide. On the 25th of October 2008 he hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time, in season 34, episode 6, and played Don Draper in two sketches. He hosted again on the 30th of January and the 30th of October 2010, and a fourth time on the 12th of April 2025. Across the 15 years between his last two hosting turns, he made cameos in 14 episodes.

  In 2009 Hamm guest-starred in three episodes of NBC's 30 Rock as Drew Baird, a doctor who becomes a neighbor and love interest of Liz Lemon, played by Tina Fey. The role earned him three Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.

  Stolen gave him his first leading film role, as a police officer whose son has been missing for eight years. In 2010 he voiced an ogre leader named Brogan in Shrek Forever After, a commercial success despite mixed reviews. In The Town, he played an FBI agent opposite Ben Affleck, and the film earned $144 million worldwide. By his account, he had received "about 40 scripts that were all set in the 60s, or had me playing advertising guys." The Town offered a role that was "the opposite to Don Draper."

  Next he played defense attorney Jake Ehrlich in Howl, based on Allen Ginsberg's 1956 poem of the same name. On the 12th of December 2010 he appeared on Fox's The Simpsons as an FBI supervisor. In Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch, released in 2011, he played High Roller and the doctor. In Bridesmaids he played Kristen Wiig's character's "rude and arrogant sex buddy." Hamm also produced the 2011 independent feature Friends with Kids with his then-partner Jennifer Westfeldt. It follows a group of friends whose lives change as the couples begin having children. Hamm and Westfeldt acted in it alongside Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Megan Fox.

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• 6. A Widening Range

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  In 2012 Hamm took a recurring role in The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, as the servant of the sociopathic billionaire Dave Mountford, played by Blake Harrison. From December 2012 to December 2013 he appeared with Daniel Radcliffe in A Young Doctor's Notebook, playing an older version of Radcliffe's character. In 2014 he played sports agent J.B. Bernstein in Disney's Million Dollar Arm. That December he guest-starred in the Black Mirror Christmas special, titled White Christmas.

  The year 2015 brought Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. He also played himself opposite Matt Berry in the Toast of London episode "Hamm On Toast." As the voice of Herb Overkill in Minions, he joined a film that grossed over $1 billion worldwide despite mixed reviews.

  Greg Mottola directed him in Keeping Up with the Joneses, with Zach Galifianakis and Gal Gadot. In 2017 came the science fiction film Marjorie Prime, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, then Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. The drama Aardvark premiered at South by Southwest and the Tribeca Film Festival that year. In 2018 he appeared in Nostalgia and the political thriller Beirut. In 2019 he played the Archangel Gabriel in the BBC and Amazon adaptation of Good Omens, from the works of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

  From 2020 to 2021 he played himself in a recurring role on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, opposite Larry David. During this period he also voiced characters in Bless the Harts, Invincible and Marvel's M.O.D.O.K. In 2022 he appeared in Top Gun: Maverick, the sequel to the 1986 film Top Gun. The same year he reunited with Mottola and with his Mad Men co-star John Slattery for Confess, Fletch. Hamm plays Fletch, in the first film of the series not to star Chevy Chase. It opened in theaters on the 16th of September 2022, premiered on Showtime on the 28th of October, and earned positive reviews for his comedic timing.

  In 2023 he joined Apple TV+'s The Morning Show, alongside Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. That year he played Sheriff Roy Tillman in the fifth season of FX's Fargo, reuniting with creator Noah Hawley, who had worked with him on Legion and Lucy in the Sky. He also reprised Gabriel in the second series of Good Omens. In 2024 he played Coach Carr in the movie musical adaptation of Mean Girls, alongside Tina Fey. He voices Marvin Flute in the animated Fox sitcom Grimsburg, which he also executive produces. On Paramount+'s Landman he plays Monty Miller, the CEO of MTex Oil. In 2025 Apple TV+'s Your Friends & Neighbors made him a television lead for the first time since Mad Men, and the series has been renewed for a second season.

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• 7. Voice and Image

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  Salon named Hamm one of its Sexiest Men Living in 2007, and People named him one of its Sexiest Men Alive in 2008. Entertainment Weekly picked him as one of its Entertainers of the Year in both 2008 and 2010. In September 2010 GQ gave him its "International Man" award.

  That same year, Mercedes-Benz hired Hamm as the new voiceover for its commercials, replacing actor Richard Thomas. The first was a spot for the S400 Hybrid campaign. In 2013 American Airlines debuted a commercial titled "Change is in the Air," with Hamm as the voice. He is a frequent flier on the airline, and Don Draper often spoke of aspiring to win it as a client. Hamm has also appeared in an ongoing H&R Block campaign and in ads in Canada for SkipTheDishes. In January 2022 he turned up in an Apple TV+ ad titled "Everyone but Jon Hamm." Also in 2022, Progressive Insurance cast him in commercials as having an off-and-on relationship with its spokesperson Flo.

  Hamm's voice has also carried his loyalty to St. Louis teams. He is a devoted fan of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and has appeared in two television advertisements for the team. He also follows the Cardinals, and he narrated the official highlight movie for their 2011 World Series win. In 2012 he played in the MLB Legend and Celebrity All Star Softball game for the National League, representing the Cardinals, and hit a home run. On the 17th of July 2013 he hosted the 21st ESPYS Awards. Since 2015 he has narrated the Amazon NFL documentary series All or Nothing. In 2018 he narrated The Saint Louis Browns: The Team That Baseball Forgot, presented by the Saint Louis Browns Historical Society.

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• 8. Off Screen

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  Hamm stopped smoking at the age of 24, yet playing Don Draper meant lighting up on camera. He smoked herbal cigarettes that contained no tobacco or nicotine. In March 2015 his representative confirmed that he had recently completed in-patient treatment for alcoholism. He also reported developing vitiligo during the filming of the first season of Mad Men.

  Hamm calls himself a "sporadic reader." He admires The Box by Marc Levinson, which he found close to his upbringing, because the standardization of shipping containers changed how his family earned its living. In the same interview he praised Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, Dave Eggers's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, John Irving's The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding.

  In the 2012 presidential election, Hamm supported President Barack Obama. In 2014 he appeared with Kerry Washington and Kevin Love in a public service announcement about stopping sexual assault on college campuses. In October 2016 he attended a Broadway fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. In May 2023 he narrated an ad for Democratic candidate Lucas Kunce, criticizing Senator Josh Hawley over the 6th of January 2021 Capitol riot. In January 2024 he endorsed Adam Schiff for the Senate in California and sent a fundraising email on his behalf.

  Hamm and the actress and screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt were in a relationship from 1997 to 2015. In April 2009 they formed the production company Points West Pictures, and they appeared together in Gap campaign advertisements. In February 2023 Hamm became engaged to the actress Anna Osceola after two years of dating. They married in June 2023 at Anderson Canyon in Big Sur, California. Osceola had already appeared briefly in his work, as the flower child receptionist at the coastal retreat where Draper stayed in the 2015 Mad Men finale.

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