Jon Hamm, Vol. II

27:16And of course, like quite a few of the people in this neighborhood, if you scratch the surface a little bit, it starts to get very weird indeed. So that's kind of what ends up being the prime mover of the second season. And I can't remember how much you've said you've seen of the first two. Okay. So you're you're in for a treat then. Well, those are all of you. The good news is I hope you like treats. There are a lot of treats to come because you're doing a season three, too. Yes, yes. We got, thank you. Thank you. Keep applauding and Apple might pick us up for season four by the time we're done with this.

27:55No, Apple has been truly amazing and really supported the show. We were picked up for a second season before we even aired a first season. The first season aired and we broke all the records for viewership and numbers and subscriptions and all the things that they measure these things by, which was a tremendous feather in our cap. We were kind of paired with the studio, which had such an amazing first season as well. So it's been a nice, comfy ride with this fledgling, I suppose you could say still at this point, streaming platform. But they've been tremendously supportive. And yeah, it's nice to be able to get ready to do another season.

28:39there's nothing better as an actor than being on vacation but knowing you have work um and that was that's been great yeah no matter what level you've accomplished in the industry it really is it never gets old you're like oh man this vacation is so much better because i know i'm going back to work yeah i felt that way when i was a teacher though so that was pretty cool too so speaking of fledgling platforms that segues back to reminisce for a second as i said it's It's been nearly 20 years since Mad Men came on the air. Another fledgling platform. That's what I'm saying. I mean, when you think back to the early days, as I recall, you'll remember better than me, but it was pretty much an immediate critical and ratings hit, which is kind of unprecedented given the platform you were on, the subject matter, all of it.

29:27Do you remember the early days of just the reception being... I remember trying to tell people that it was on AMC, not A &E. Right. That was an early tricky thing for people to... So A &E, tell me about that. I was like, it sounds great. We're not on it. But two things about the sort of relatively slow growth of Mad Men was that, yes, as soon as the world at large saw it, people were very excited about it and especially excited to talk about it and really kind of... It was right at the beginning of sort of blog culture as well. so that was the thing that people would get online and recap it and talk about it and get in the comments and hash it out with all of their theories and whatnot but the real problem was it was a relatively expensive show and it was still a show about advertising the rules were that if it wasn't a show about doctors or lawyers or cops then it's not a TV show and it doesn't happen because there's no stakes.

30:34And we've evolved as TV consumers past that at this point. We have shows that are about stealing things in wealthy bedroom communities now. But that was kind of, people still were having a hard time with that. And so, yes, it got, we got picked up kind of season by season until the fourth season. And we won the Emmy for best drama every for the first four years in a row Thanks Thank you, but yeah, so finally that's when we got picked up for The rest of the last the final three seasons and I said okay you guys get you guys have proven it Thanks, and for you personally, you know, we've talked about this before.

31:19I mean you were a jobbing actor You weren't like out of nowhere like you've been working my division fans at oh My god exactly

31:30But where was your head at in terms of where your career was right before it and reconciling the fame and accomplishment that came? Right before it, I had just been fired off of a pilot of a show that when I did it was called Sisters. And then it was eventually when it went to series without me, it was called Related. it went for I think a season maybe a season and a half, two seasons something like that which I was devastated about but I was fired from that pilot and that put me back into the swirl of what used to be called pilot season where you would audition for all of these shows and hope to get one that then you would hope would go to series that then you would hope to be multiple years so I had auditioned for six pilots this pilot season and got all the way to the end of every one of them and did not get cast.

32:31So Mad Men was the seventh pilot that was for a network that no one had heard of and people kept calling it the wrong network. And I was at the very bottom of everybody's list because it was casting out of New York and I didn't know the casting directors. In In fact, when I drove across Los Angeles in the rain on a Friday, those of you who've spent time in Los Angeles know that that's a very dangerous and long journey. And I ended up at the place where the audition was being held, a place called Radical Media, which was a commercial house. They did commercials. And I came in and it was raining and I was wet and I was pissed and I was sitting in traffic for an hour and a half and I was just like, fuck.

33:21And there's a kid in there waiting and he's like, are you here for the toothpaste commercial? And I was like, what? No. What the fuck? No. Wait, what toothpaste commercial? I'd be perfect for that. I was the only person there because I was at, like I said, at the very bottom of the list. And and slowly over the course of the next two months, I started climbing my way up the ladder, which is fun and nice that you keep getting asked back, but also at every stage, if you do it, you could have done it 18 times great in a row, and if you do it once bad, you're out. And I was terrified that that was going to happen because that was what had happened the last six pilot auditions that I had gone through.

34:11Fortunately, it didn't happen that way. I was able to at least put the bat on the ball in each of those auditions. And here we are. Clearly. Amazing. Amazing.

34:28Thank you. More Happy Say Confused coming up.

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35:36When a line like, that's what the money is for, enters the cultural lexicon, becomes memefied, years later before memes existed. What's that like for you as an actor to see that live on? I mean, it's been a minute since I've seen that actual scene, not seen it clipped out. But yeah, I mean, there's a million of those throughout the course of the show. Just the level of writing that Matthew and his staff were able to consistently produce was just unprecedented and impressive. It was great to come to work every day and have scenes like that loaded up. That particular episode, too, just top to bottom, was a pretty high watermark.

36:25And I think if you actually go through the thing, it's literally right in the middle of the show. Like, there's leading up to that, and then there's leading away from that. And I don't know if that happened on purpose. I don't think it could have. But it was pretty cool that that's how that worked. As much pride as you must take in the dramatic work, I mean, I remember distinctly when 30 Rock happened and I saw you in that show and how unbelievable you were in that show. And the comedy career you have since charted, whether it's Bridesmaids, being a staple of SNL, etc., is pretty remarkable. How much pride do you take?

37:07Because you love comedy. I do. You had friends in the comedy scene in L.A. early on. Still do. So being a part of that, just having that part of your career must be so thrilling. Yeah, it was great. I mean, the reason I got... And so the pilot of Mad Men and the pilot of 30 Rock shot in the same studio. They shot at Silver Cup. 30 Rock made it on the air before we did by a year because they had a giant network behind them and we had A &E AMC So it was very we had kind of parallel lives as as drama and comedy and so a couple years into both of our runs I Had I had started I had Gotten the offer to host Saturday Night Live and And we finished the read-through of all of the sketches.

38:06My first time, I'm freaking out. I'm nervous. I'm sweating. We had 45 sketches that we read for like four and a half hours up on 17. It's this bananas cauldron that you're pitched into that you have no concept of what it is. And people are running to you and go, can you do this kind of, but it's sort of Jamaican, but not offensively. And also, can you sing? And do you know that? And you're like, yeah, sure. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Right. Which one? Right? Okay. And they're holding a stack of scripts that are like this, 40 sketches. And you're sitting directly next to Lorne. And in my case, I think it was Kristen Wiig was next, the other side of me.

38:39And there's 75 people in the room, including the cast. And you read all of these things out loud in front of each other. No pressure. So after that happens, the powers that be go and sort of just determine what they can and can't do and should and shouldn't do. and by the end of that evening you have the rudiments of what the show will look like. And they say to the host, go down and do some fittings and wigs and all the stuff that you have to do and come back up in 25 minutes and we'll talk about what the show is going to look like. So down you go, down to eight, and you get your wig cap on and you get all fit in your little dressing room and the phone rings.

39:19And the phone rings. I'm like, I don't have a phone. What do you mean the phone rings? It's just a ringing phone in this dressing room in 30 Rock. You're like, this has to be a mistake. So I pick it up, and it's, hey, is this John? Yes, you called me. Hi, this is Robert Carlock. I'm an executive producer of 30 Rock. We were bumping this idea around. Do you want to come join us? We have this idea for this guy who's going to be Liz's love interest. It'll start in a couple weeks. Do you want to do it? Hi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. Okay, great. Well, we'll work it out and we'll see you in a couple weeks and thanks and it's really great.

39:56I'm like, okay, click. Anyway, back to the wigs and we did that just happen or did I dream that what was happening? And what had happened behind the scenes, of course, I find this out many moons later was that Tina called Lauren after read-through and said, is that guy funny? And Lauren said in his typical Canadian understatement, yeah, he'll do. and that got me on to 30 Rock. Now, when I started 30 Rock, I was a practicing physician with a daughter. When I ended 30 Rock, I was a buffoon who had lost both hands and had them replaced by comical pirate hooks because I was in a a Medicine Sans Frontieres flight in Africa helicopter, and I thought I saw my old football coach, so I waved.

40:53When you say it like that, it sounds weird. It sounds... It does feel like you've achieved the sweet spot of being able to go back and forth. Because I remember the last time you were on the podcast, you were saying, even your agents at the time were like, you're doing a lot of comedy, John. But you found in recent years, you get to do something like Fletch, and you also get to do Top Gun Maverick. And that's like a really rare... It's a nice thing to have, the way I describe it, or I have described it in past, is having credibility kind of on both sides of the aisle. So you're not forced to only play one note.

41:33And that's great. I mean, the whole point of getting into this business is not to do the same thing over and over and over again. There's plenty of factory jobs you could do if you wanted to do that. but I've just been tremendously fortunate I've been able to put myself into those positions often against the wills of my representatives but there was also kind of I came along like I said the beginning of blog culture but also the beginning of how this whole business sort of shifted I think when I got into this like you weren't allowed to be a guest star on other shows it wasn't like a thing that you were able to do because they wanted to kind of own you and keep you in your lane that all went out the window in the early 2000s because of, I think, the necessity of, there was just so much stuff people had to do it.

42:16I kept my options open and I said yes to a lot of silly, goofy things. Everybody, please go and watch Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass if you get a chance. I'm very curious about this. That's a very, in the column of silly, goofy things. Is that David Wayne? Is that... David's David and Ken Marino's latest movie, which is a very weird take on, let's call it The Wizard of Oz, except if Dorothy wants to fuck The Wizard of Oz at the end of the movie. Are you playing The Wizard of Oz? Yeah.

43:01Of course you are. It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen. But yeah, so, I mean, stuff like that. And yeah, any agent worth their salt would be like, please don't do this. Oh, don't do this. I'm like, I'm going to do it. But you also name check, like again in recent years, I would imagine working with Noah Hawley on Fargo, Roy Tillman, it's got to be a really special character, really special experience in the career. I, I, that happened because I had seen the first, hello. Thank you. Thank you very much. Noah Hawley, ladies and gentlemen. No, not. I had seen the first season of Fargo when the and I thought like most people I thought this is a terrible idea It's never gonna work and then I watched it and I was like this is amazing.

43:46Who is this guy? And I met Noah. I think either that year the you're following at a at a Holiday party and we were just happen to be standing next to each other at the bar and I said hey man I like your work and he said I like your work I said, we should work together sometime. Okay. And lo and behold, we did, three times. So, yeah, he said, I want you to play this guy who's the Marlboro Man, but he's really, really, really, really bad. And I said, okay, I can do that. And it was fun. And cold. Calgary. Calgary cold. Worth it, though. Worth it. Yeah, it was. some questions from the audience here.

44:30In your career, what's the most memorable scene you've ever shot? What's the one that you're going to be, stick with you until the end of your day? Well, there's quite a few from Mad Men that I could go with. But I think, and it's more recent than that, the one that I've really, was really kind of blown away by, and it's, I didn't really have that much to do in it. It's just sort of circumstantial. I remember walking onto the set of Top Gun Maverick, and there's like a four-story American flag to my left and a Tom Cruise walking toward me in full Maverick gear with a giant smile and there's like three F-18s in the deep background and a hundred naval aviators in the foreground and he's clapping and he's got his hands out ready for a hug and and he's like, I'm so glad you're here.

45:24And it took everything in me to not look behind me like, is he talking to me?

45:32We had a conversation and I said, this must be bizarre for you. You were here in this exact space 35 years ago playing the same character. And he's like, yeah, it's pretty wild. Ready to shoot? I was like, okay, let's go. And we shot. And I was like, I was having kind of an out-of-body moment of like, I cannot believe that Top Gun to me as a 14-year-old in St. Louis, Missouri, was more than a movie. It was a religion, I guess. It was, I mean, I saw it with my friends a hundred times. and again in the age before streaming and and everything immediately on demand with the press of a button you had to go out to go see these movies and we did it was so defined cool for us and so to be a part of that uh and be inside of that and looking looking around at it and and then for the movie to be so tremendous also uh that one i think i i i'm still kind of blown away that i was in that movie.

46:41That movie, Maverick, yeah. I mean, Maverick is a miraculous movie. I mean, I can't say enough about it. It is like a perfect movie of that type. It really is. It's a great film. And yeah, I was, yeah. So I know it's a weird answer to that question, but I really do think about that a lot. And the fact that we started shooting that movie before the pandemic. So that movie was sitting in a room in Paramount, cooling its heels for a solid two years. Yeah. What's the word on Top Gun 3? It's a happening. I think. I mean, I'd make it. Cyclones around? I don't know. No. Better be. All right, we're going to end with this, John.

47:32Okay. Happy Sack Confused profoundly random questions for you. You ready? Yes. Dogs or cats? Dogs. No judgment on cats, except I don't like cats. I just want you to be very careful. Jessie Buckley answered this and got into a lot of trouble when she started saying she didn't like cats. There is literally a movie called Don't Fuck With Cats. If you haven't seen it, Don't Fuck With Cats. What do you collect, John, if anything? What do I collect? Memories.

48:07I have a pretty solid collection of baseballs. And here's the reason why. I know this is a whole rapid fire thing, but guess what? It's gonna get up. I can't answer a question other than cats or dogs shortly. Shortly? Jesus. English major. When I was growing up, my best friend's dad played professional baseball. And they had this really cool house. and it had art everywhere and books everywhere. And I was like, this is a cool house. One of their rooms, they had a piano. I don't think anybody in the family played piano, but they had a piano, which was also very cool. On top of that piano, they had this low, large basket that was filled with baseballs.

48:53Not just normal baseballs. These were baseballs that had been used in major league baseball games. They had things like Ted's first hit, Ted's hundredth hit, Ted's thousandth hit. All of these things had amazing little notes on them. And I thought, man, that's really cool. So I have a collection. Now, I did not play Major League Baseball. I have never caught a ball in the stands, although I've almost caught a ball once, twice. but I get given baseballs a lot and so this collection is burgeoning, I'll say that. So that's the long answer to your very short question. Great answer. Do you have a favorite video game of all time?

49:38Favorite video game of all time? Coin-operated or console? Whatever you like.

49:51This might be a very controversial. there was a game in the 80s called Defender Defender I did not expect that to get an applause break it's more than the division got it was better than the Defender was an amazing game because it had so many buttons and things and it was incredibly difficult to play and I was not very good at it but I really liked I really wanted to be good at it. And it also had just a button that was kind of a panic button called hyperspace. And if you got in trouble, you just hit the button. It was right in the middle of the thing. This was the... This was forward and backward.

50:35And shooting. And then if everything went to shit, you hit hyperspace. And there was a... I don't even know what the percentage was. Whenever you would come back from... It would take you to a different part of the thing and you would just zap over there. But, I don't know. a certain percentage of the time, you would just blow up, too. So it was kind of like, it was an oh shit button, and also the, well, now you're dead. We could all use a oh shit hyperspace button now and then. Yeah, if you didn't have to die. Right, that's true. The Dakota Johnson Memorial question, she asked me this, I ask everybody, would you rather have a mouthful of bees or one bee in your butt?

51:15Where exactly in my butt? Oh, I've never been asked that. Like between the cheeks? I could handle that all day. In the hole? No thank you, sir.

51:27Thank you for that. You've got to clarify, guys. I regret so much. What's the wallpaper on your phone? You guys won't be able to see this. Maybe you will. It's my dog, Murphy. He's getting a little scratch on his chin because he's a really good boy. Who's the last actor you were mistaken for? Oh, this is a good story.

51:57John Hanna. Now, I don't know if you guys know who John Hanna is. Wonderful actor. Scotsman. Balding. Older than me. Really looks nothing remotely like me. The only thing maybe we have in common is phonetically. Our names. He's a J-O-H-N. I'm not. He's an H-A-N-N-A-H. Palindromic. Very cool. But no M's. Whatever. Hannah, Ham. Close enough. I went on an audition for something very British at one point in my career. It was before Mad Men, but after I had worked on things. So I was a known quantity. and I prepared this whole thing in a very, in my mind, fantastic British accent and the lady was like, this is great, you're great, I had no idea you were from the United Kingdom, I said, that's because I am not, but it's nice that you think that I am because my English accent is so good, she said, that's not why I thought you were a member of the UK, you have to be a member of the UK to be in this thing.

53:16I said, well, I am not. Where does this leave us? She calls the assistant in and says, John is not a citizen of the United Kingdom, is he? And there was a lot of hushed whispering, and the lady said, I'm terribly sorry. We thought you were John Hanna. and I said oh no nope and she goes okay well do you want to do the second scene I said no why no and I walked out with my tail between my legs and drove home but that's the last person I was mistaken for do you have a worst note a director has ever given you that sticks out what's the one that jumps out No, I mean, I can't really think of any terrible note.

54:13I remember early on in my career working with a television director who had not done a lot of television. And they were setting the camera up in the wrong place because to do the reverse of it, you would have to remove a wall that was not removable. It was a cinder block wall, in fact. We were shooting in a gymnasium. And I said, you're probably going to want to move this over here. And he goes, thanks. I think I know where to put the camera. Okay. So that was, and of course, we couldn't get the reverse of it, and that person was fired. But that was probably the worst note I got. And finally, we're going to wrap up with this.

54:56In the spirit of happy, say, confuse, an actor that you see on screen that always makes you happy, you're immediately in a better mood. Jeff Bridges great great a movie that makes you sad

55:15Terms of Endearment that's one of mine yeah I was raised Catholic and I lost my mother very young so if there's a dead mom or the devil in anything forget about it I'm either weeping or under the couch those are the two things that so confused I don't know Protestants? I don't know and finally what's a food that makes you confused? you don't get it zucchini noodles? what's the fucking point? have some vegetables who are we fooling guys? who are we fooling? you could put shoelaces in pasta and be like look there's shoe it's shoe pasta No, just because it's that shape, come on It is confusing We've learned a lot about you tonight We sure have Everybody's going to see Master and Commander No, they're going to see your friends and neighbors April 3rd on Apple TV You've seen a sneak peek More to come, a season 3 to come Spread the good word and give it up one more time For the one and only Jon Hamm, everybody Thank you I truly want to thank you guys for spending your Sunday with me.

56:28This is really, really great. It's a tremendous honor to be here. And thank you guys very, very much for coming out. Please do enjoy the show. But thank you. It was really meaningful to me, guys. Thanks so much.

56:50And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh.

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