American actor and producer
Jonathan Daniel Hamm (born March 10, 1971) is an American actor and producer known for his role as Don Draper in the period drama television series Mad Men (2007–2015). His performance earned critical praise and recognition, earning him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Drama in 2008 and again in 2016, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2015. Hamm has received 16 Primetime Emmy Award nominations for his performances for acting and producing Mad Men. He also directed two episodes of the show. Hamm has also appeared in the Sky Arts series A Young Doctor's Notebook and guest starring in Channel 4 dystopian anthology series Black Mirror and the Amazon Prime fantasy series Good Omens. Hamm is also known for his comedic roles in various sitcoms including his guest starring roles in 30 Rock, Toast of London, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Parks and Recreation, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.
Hamm is also known for his appearances in film including the remake of the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), before making his first leading film role in the 2010 independent thriller Stolen. He continued taking leading roles in Million Dollar Arm (2014), Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016), and Beirut (2018), and supporting roles in The Town (2010), Sucker Punch (2011), Bridesmaids (2011), Baby Driver (2017), Tag (2018), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), The Report (2019), and Richard Jewell (2018). He has also provided his voice for the animated films Shrek Forever After (2010) and Minions (2015), along with the second season of the FX series Legion (2018).
LoveI have a lady, she's a great lady. I love her a lot, she loves me. We're on the same page. Whenever that day happens when we're not on the same page we'll move forward with it. We're interested in having our lives be our lives right now and not a third person's vis-a-vis marriage and whatever that means.
MarriageIt couldn't be a simpler answer. Marriage doesn't really mean anything to me. I feel like in many ways marriage is more for the families of the couple than for the people involved, so I don't gravitate to it.
Actors about themselvesI remember opening my dad's closet and there were, like, 40 suits, every color of the rainbow, plaid and winter and summer. He had two jewelry boxes full of watches and lighters and cuff links. And just... he was that guy. He was probably unfulfilled in his life in many ways.
MotivationConfidenceYou have to have a hell of a lot of confidence in what you're doing.
ConfidenceIt's such a capricious, strange existence, basing your life on the whims of others, and basing your ebbs and flows of confidence and lack of confidence on the fact that people either choose you or don't.
I wouldn't know anything about opera music if it wasn't for Bugs Bunny. That was my entire introduction to opera music. I wouldn't know anything about classical music if it wasn't for "Fantasia." They didn't have to do that stuff. They chose to base this ridiculous, funny, intriguing, creative story on this beautiful classical music. It's the combination of the high and the low that I thought was very cool. But I had no concept of it as a kid.
I've always had weird hair, and it's never looked good.
I've been surrounded by dogs my whole life. I got a golden retriever a year after I was born.
The difference between directing film and directing television is so stark simply because TV is a living breathing organism already when you direct an episode.
I was raised by a single mother and I've been in a 10-year relationship with my girlfriend. My whole life I've been surrounded by women.
I drove around in a Volkswagen Rabbit I shared with one of my roommates, and it didn't have a roof. It doesn't rain much in L.A., but when it did, it was utterly miserable.
I don't necessarily want kids. A lot of our friends are having children and I don't know if it's for me. I haven't come down hardcore on either side of the argument. I think when people come from a stable family having children becomes a celebration and I'm not sure it would be that way for me.
I don't need to be married, but I feel married.
Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role [in the 1960s]. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids. The women who did work were treated as second-class citizens because it was a male-dominated society. That was a fact of life then. But it wouldn't be tolerated today, and that's quite right in my book... people look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male.
I'm not gay, and I'm not a superhero.
It's definitely nerve-racking to be the center of attention. I'm not the kind of an actor that just craves attention 24-7 - but it's part of the deal. You're the leader on the set
It's funny when guys don't like to talk about makeup. I'm like, "You know you're wearing makeup, right? We all are."
It's nice, when the lights come up at the end of the movie, to not be like, "What did I just watch?"
When I was a little kid, I kind of liked the commercials more than a lot of the stuff on TV. My favorite ones were the Miller Lite ads with all the jocks in them. "Tastes great, less filling."
People go through different stages of their lives at different times. If you're out of sync with your friend group, that gets exploded once everyone starts having kids because they just have to deal with different stuff that you don't really relate to.
It's hard to describe to people how terrible it was when you could only watch cartoons at a certain time in your life. But no, I would watch all of them - the Warner Bros. cartoons and the Bugs Bunnys and then the Tex Avery stuff. Looking back on it, they were so incredibly subversive for their time. You'd think, "Oh, they're just making jokes and this or that." But when you watch them as an adult, you think, "Oh no, they were talking about some pretty deep stuff."
For a kid who's lost his mom and all the rage and grief that no one was able to talk out of me, football was a very therapeutic sport. Very.
People care enough to write blogs and reviews and things, which is nice.
In this ridiculously polarized, obstructionist world, the operating principle should be, Let's get something done. Not, Let's freeze everything.
Any time you're making a movie, all you want to do is reduce the variables of things that could possibly go wrong. I think that's why we work with the same people over and over again.
I'm able to leave Don Draper at work. I'm quite dissimilar from him in real life
For most people, the authentic things are relationships, friends, and family.
I'm a huge fan of television, and it's a really good time to be a fan of television, because there's so much good stuff out there. In every genre, really.
The world keeps moving, the world keeps turning, and people get older, and young people become older and more important and cooler and interesting, and actually staying the same becomes a liability, especially in the advertising industry.
I'm not a cheater. I've never cheated in my life.
I think that we live in a moment in time where people have a lot of information about a lot of people kind of instantly, but it's all sort of surface information and it doesn't really mean anything.
Would you want people walking up to you and pointing at your d--k? I can't believe I'm still talking about this. But I've worn underwear every day of my life and the fact that I'm painted as this exhibitionist is a little annoying. It's become a meme, I guess. Being someone who people want to photograph, you have to open yourself up to the positive and negative. It is what it is. If I get mad at it I'll look like a douchebag. But it's silly.
I like kids but I also like the option to close the door. Becoming a parent is a whole other life, and it doesn't stop.
Point me to 50 people online who think I'm super sexy. I'll point you to 50 more who say he's old and looks like my dad.
I'm wearing pants, for f---'s sake. Lay off. I mean, it's not like I'm a f---ing lead miner. There are harder jobs in the world. But when people feel the freedom to create Tumblr accounts about my c---, I feel like that wasn't part of the deal ... But whatever. I guess it's better than being called out for the opposite.
I think pets are great. They're better than kids, that's for sure.
Losing both parents at a young age gave me a sense that you can't really control life - so you'd better live it while it's here. I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago. All you can do is push in a direction and see what comes of it.
I don't have any sort of calculus in choosing film roles.
Time moves on. You can't go back in time. Everything has a consequence, and the last episode of the last season is no exception.
I played Winnie the Pooh in first grade. I was an early adopter of standing in front of people and looking like an idiot.
I've always been a fan of advertising, I've always been a fan of television, I've loved commercials, I've loved all the jingles, I loved all the stuff
I got into acting because my teachers kept nudging me into it. The power a teacher has to influence someone is so great. I can't think of a profession I have more respect for.
We know that inevitably the millennials will get old and tired again, and then there will be the bilennials or trilennials, or whatever the next generation is, and we're all going to end up on our lawn shaking our fists in a bathrobe yelling at the moon.
Struggle is part of the journey.
It is nice when things end. That is what stories do - they end. It is hard to write endings and it is hard to come to the end of things, but I think when it is done right, it is a very satisfying way to appreciate something.
Acting is sort of an extension of childhood. You get to play all of these roles and have so much fun. Playing an athlete would be so cool. Or where you get to shoot guns, ride horses. I wouldn't turn down any of that.
I came in the Dawson's Creek era; it was all about tiny guys who looked like teenagers, and I haven't looked like a teenager ever. So I was, like, auditioning to be their dads. At 25.
I'm painfully aware of my surroundings at all times.
The great thing about getting older is living life.
Some boys are particular about how they look. I'm not.
Part of being an adult is treating women like women.
Whether it's Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated.
People look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful white male
I've gotten away with a lot in my life. The older you get the more you realize you're not getting away with it, it's taking its toll somewhere. So you try not to put yourself in those situations. Part of the mysterious process called growing up. Some people do that better than others