Jon Hamm
Jonathan Daniel Hamm is an American actor. He is best known for his role as Don Draper in the period drama series Mad Men, for which he won numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and two Golden Globe Awards.
Hamm also acted in lead roles in the films Stolen, Million Dollar Arm, Keeping Up with the Joneses, Beirut, and Confess, Fletch, as well as his supporting roles in The Town, Sucker Punch, Bridesmaids, Baby Driver, Tag, Bad Times at the El Royale, The Report, Lucy in the Sky, Richard Jewell, No Sudden Move, and Top Gun: Maverick. He voiced roles in Shrek Forever After, Minions, and Transformers One.
Hamm expanded his career on television taking leading roles in prestige drama series such as Sky Arts' A Young Doctor's Notebook, FX's Fargo, Paramount+'s Landman, and Apple TV+'s Your Friends & Neighbors. He also took supporting roles in the dystopian anthology Black Mirror: White Christmas, the superhero series Legion, the fantasy series Good Omens, and the drama series The Morning Show.
Also known for his comedic roles he has guest starred in the NBC shows 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation, the Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm, and as himself in Toast of London.
Early life and education
Jonathan Daniel Hamm was born on March 10, 1971, in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of Deborah Hamm, a secretary, and Daniel Hamm, who managed a family trucking company. Hamm is of German, English, French, and Irish descent; his surname came from German immigrants. He was raised Catholic. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he lived in the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur with his mother until her death from colon cancer when Hamm was 10 years old. He then lived with his father and grandmother in nearby Normandy until his father died ten years after his mother. Jon was 20.His first acting role was as Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade. At 16, he was cast as Judas in the play Godspell and enjoyed the experience, though he did not take acting seriously. He attended John Burroughs School, a private school in Ladue, where he was a member of the football, baseball and swim teams. During this time, he dated Sarah Clarke, who became an actress.
After graduation in 1989, Hamm enrolled at the University of Texas. While a member of Sigma Nu fraternity at that university, Hamm was arrested along with seven other students for violently attacking and severely injuring fellow student Mark Allen Sanders as part of fraternity hazing in November 1990. Hamm admitted the crime, which included severely beating a student and lighting a student's pants on fire, as part of a deferred adjudication plea deal and the charges were dismissed following the completion of probation. He later transferred to the University of Missouri. He answered an advertisement from a theater company seeking players for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and was cast in the production. Other roles followed, such as Leon Czolgosz in Assassins.
Career
After graduating in 1993 with a BA in English, Hamm returned to his high school to teach eighth-grade acting. One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who became an actress. Years later, Hamm appeared in Kemper's Netflix series Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.1995–2006: Early roles
Hamm, who did not wish to pursue a "normal career", moved to Los Angeles permanently in 1995. He moved into a house with four other aspiring actors and began working as a waiter while attending auditions. He acted in theater, including as Flavius in a production of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens with the Sacred Fools Theater Company. Looking older than his age, he found it difficult to find work as an actor, despite representation by the William Morris Agency. In 1998, after he had failed to get any acting work for three years, William Morris dropped him as a client. He continued working as a waiter and, briefly, worked as a set decorator for a softcore pornography movie. He decided that his thirtieth birthday would be his deadline to succeed in Hollywood, and has said:In 2000, Hamm landed the role of romantic firefighter Burt Ridley on NBC's drama series Providence. His one-episode contract grew to 19 and allowed him to quit waiting tables. He made his feature movie debut with one line in Clint Eastwood's adventure film Space Cowboys. More substantial roles followed in the independent comedy Kissing Jessica Stein and the war film We Were Soldiers, during the filming of which he turned 30. His career was bolstered by his recurring role of police inspector Nate Basso on Lifetime's television series The Division from 2002 to 2004. Other minor roles followed on the television series What About Brian, CSI: Miami, Related, Numb3rs, The Unit, and The Sarah Silverman Program. Hamm's Mad Men castmate Eric Ladin said in an interview that he admired Hamm because he was persistent until he became successful as an actor.
2007–2015: Breakthrough with ''Mad Men''
Hamm landed his breakthrough role in 2007, when he was chosen from over 80 candidates to play Don Draper, protagonist of AMC's drama series Mad Men. In the series, set in a fictional 1960s Madison Avenue ad agency, he played a suave, married, philandering executive with an obscure past. He recalled, "I read the script for Mad Men and I loved it... I never thought they'd cast me—I mean, I thought they'd go with one of the five guys who look like me but are movie stars." He believes that an actor with a "proven track record" would likely have been chosen if another network had produced the show. He went through numerous auditions; each time he explained to the casting directors what he could bring to the character, if given the part. Alan Taylor and Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner initially thought he was "too handsome" for the role, but ultimately decided, "it was perfect to cast sort of the perfect male in this part." Weiner also sensed that Hamm had suffered the early loss of his parents, similarly to Draper's backstory. Hamm says that he used memories of his father to portray Draper, a well-dressed, influential man of business and society hiding great inner turmoil and experiencing changes in the world beyond his control.File:The town affleck hamm.JPG|thumb|left|Hamm with Ben Affleck filming The Town
Mad Men debuted on July 19, 2007, with almost 1.4 million viewers. It developed a loyal audience, with Hamm receiving strong reviews. Robert Bianco of USA Today described Hamm's portrayal of Draper as "a starmaking performance," and The Boston Globes Matthew Gilbert called Hamm a "brilliant lead." In 2008, Hamm won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama and was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. In 2009, he was again nominated for the Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award in the same category, and received another Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. In 2010, he received his third Golden Globe Award nomination. Mad Men concluded its seven-season run on May 17, 2015. Hamm received his first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series on September 20, 2015, after receiving 12 nominations for acting in and producing the series.
Hamm's next film role was in the 2008 science fiction movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the classic 1951 film of the same name. It received mixed reviews but was financially successful, earning $230 million worldwide. Hamm hosted Saturday Night Live, season 34, episode 6, on October 25, 2008, and played various roles, including Don Draper in two sketches. He returned as host again on January 30 and October 30, 2010. Hamm hosted SNL for a fourth time on April 12, 2025. In the 15 years between his last two hosting appearances, Hamm was featured in 14 episodes as a cameo.
In 2009, he guest-starred in three episodes of the NBC television sitcom 30 Rock as Drew Baird, a doctor who is a neighbor and love interest of Liz Lemon earning three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series. Hamm's first leading film role came with the independent mystery thriller Stolen in 2009, in which he played a police officer whose son has been missing for eight years. In 2010 he had a minor voice role in the animated feature Shrek Forever After as an ogre leader named Brogan. The film received mixed reviews but was a commercial success.
He played as an FBI agent in the crime drama The Town with Ben Affleck. After receiving "about 40 scripts that were all set in the 60s, or had me playing advertising guys," Hamm was pleased that The Town offered him a role that was "the opposite to Don Draper." It received generally favorable reviews and earned $144 million worldwide. His next acting role was as defense attorney Jake Ehrlich in the independent film Howl, based on Allen Ginsberg's eponymous 1956 poem. On December 12, 2010, he made a guest appearance as an FBI supervisor on Fox's animated series The Simpsons. He was featured in Zack Snyder's action-fantasy film Sucker Punch as the character High Roller and the doctor. He also had a supporting role in the comedy Bridesmaids as Kristen Wiig's "rude and arrogant sex buddy." He was next seen in the independent feature Friends with Kids, which he produced with his then-partner Jennifer Westfeldt. The story concerns a group of friends whose lives are changed as the couples in the group begin to have children. Hamm and Westfedlt acted alongside Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Megan Fox.
He had a recurring role in the sitcom The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret in 2012, as the servant of sociopathic billionaire Dave Mountford. He hosted the 21st ESPYS Awards on July 17, 2013. He played sports agent J.B. Bernstein in Disney's sports drama Million Dollar Arm. He appeared with Daniel Radcliffe in A Young Doctor's Notebook, playing an older version of Radcliffe's character, from December 2012 to December 2013. In December 2014, he guest-starred in a special Christmas episode of the British science fiction anthology series Black Mirror, titled "White Christmas." He had a number of roles in 2015, including the comedy show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp. He also guest-starred in an episode of the British comedy series Toast of London playing himself opposite Matt Berry in series 3, episode 3, "Hamm On Toast". He was featured in the animated comedy Minions as the voice of Herb Overkill. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a major success, grossing over $1 billion worldwide.