We quiz John Hamm on what it’s like to be one of Satan’s minions

By Matthew Halverson
Photograph by John Russo/AMC

After years of playing hero types—a cop, a firefighter, an American soldier in Vietnam—actor and former St. Louisan Jon Hamm is finally taking on a role steeped in evil: He stars as a Madison Avenue ad executive in the early 1960s in AMC’s Mad Men, set to debut this summer.


What part of St. Louis are you from? I lived in Florissant until about age 4, Creve Coeur from 4 to 10, Normandy from 10 to 18, and then, after college [at the University of Missouri–Columbia], I moved back to St. Louis and taught at John Burroughs for a year and lived in U. City. There isn’t a place in St. Louis that you could drop me where I’d get lost.

Weren’t you a day-care teacher in college? I can’t imagine that was a very relaxing job to have, come finals time. Yeah, it was stressful. Kids don’t let you bullshit. They stay on top of you. So that was at least one good way to maintain focus.

Try to keep up: Your character in We Were Soldiers was named Matt Dillon. The producer of Mad Men is Matthew Weiner, who has been a producer on The Sopranos, which is on HBO, which also happens to be the home of Entourage, which stars Kevin Dillon. Any connection? [Laughs.] No, but it’s interesting. My girlfriend’s movie was showing at the Deauville Film Festival several years back. At the closing night of the festival, we were all invited to dinner at the mayor of Deauville’s house. So at my table were Jack Valenti, Robert Evans, the mayor of Deauville, her friend ... and Matt Dillon. And I’d just recently wrapped We Were Soldiers. So I actually got to meet my namesake.

Mad Men is about ad executives. Get into character and sell me on the show. It’s a tough sell. My character isn’t the greatest guy. He presents himself as a guy’s guy and everybody’s buddy, and the more you know about him, maybe he isn’t that great.

Tell me about it. I think you covered all seven deadly sins in the first 30 minutes. These guys are paid to tell people what makes them happy, to define it for a culture, and at that time that was it: the party guy who drinks a lot, smokes, has sex with as many women as he can and figures it all out when he gets home. But the more you look at it—especially with a modern sensibility—the more you realize that maybe there is something more to life than a nice new watch or having the “right” stove.

This show is obviously every advertiser’s product-placement dream. The Lucky Strikes brand shows up prominently early on—any chance we’ll see an appearance by any of your hometown companies, like, say, a certain brewery? I don’t know. I’d certainly love it. Alcohol definitely plays a big part in this show, so I think at some point we’ll have to address how to sell booze: “Nine out of 10 doctors drink Dewar’s.”

I counted, and I’m pretty sure your character smoked 76 cigarettes in the pilot. What are the chances you’ll survive to the end of the season? When I lived in Normandy, people smoked when they ate ... People smoked when they smoked—so throughout high school and college I was a smoker. I quit for eight years, and then I got this gig, and I was, like, “Well, back on the train again”—but they’re herbal cigarettes.

That’s got to be hell for an ex-smoker. Oh, man, it’s brutal—but, hey, it looks great.