Category: Jon Hamm

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Jon Hamm: On Mad Men, we were smoking rose petals & drinking onion water

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Ten years ago, Mad Men ended after seven seasons. It was my favorite TV show for years, and while I prefer the earlier seasons, the quality of the show did not drop off (in retrospect). The storylines were realistic, the characters were nuanced and it was all so well-written. Well, to celebrate/commemorate a decade since the end of Mad Men, the ATX Festival invited Jon Hamm and John Slattery to a forum to talk about the show and how it changed their lives. It would have been great to see Elisabeth Moss and Christina Hendricks there too, but maybe they were busy. Hamm and Slattery ended up revealing some of the tricks with all of the “cigarettes” they had to smoke and all of the “cocktails” they had to drink on-camera.

Ten years after “Mad Men” wrapped, stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery still have fond memories of the landmark AMC drama. Well, perhaps except for the smoking. And the onion water. Reuniting Saturday at Austin’s ATX TV Festival. Hamm and Slattery spoke to moderator Noah Hawley (who worked with Hamm on the most recent season of “Fargo”) about the legacy of the show, how it still resonates with both them and their fans — and yes, all those cigarettes.

That couldn’t have been good for you, Hawley said. Replied Hamm: “Oh, it was not. Yeah, I think somebody did a count, and in the pilot alone, I spoke 75 cigarettes… They are fake cigarettes, but that just means that there’s no nicotine in them. It doesn’t mean you’re not burning something.”

Because “Mad Men” was shot in Los Angeles but took place in New York, much of the filming was done indoors. “We didn’t go outside, which was awesome and not awesome,” Hamm said. “The whole thing, the whole stage is full of fake cigarette smoke.”

Slattery noted that the fake cigarettes meant that they were smoking rose petals and marshmallow. While that may sound nice, it wasn’t. Then, add to that what was used to replicate a vodka martini: A glass of water with onion in it. “Oh, the breath was lovely,” quipped Hamm. Slattery pointed out that the “vodka” was fake, but the onion was very real. “Pop another pearl onion in your glass of water, and then smoke 26 more fake cigarettes and it’s 9:30 in the morning!” he said.

At least it was slightly better than smoking real cigarettes — something that Hamm said “some of the younger actors” tried to do while shooting the “Mad Men” pilot. “They were like, ‘We’re gonna smoke real cigarettes. We really want to, feel it and do it,’ “ Hamm recalled. “And I was like, ‘let me know how that goes.’ And within three days, they were yellow and sallow. This is a terrible idea.”

Hawley pointed out that it’s similar to another trick that actors soon learn: Take very small bites when eating food on camera, since you’ll be doing it over and over again. “And move [the food] around the plate,” Hamm added. “We can’t all be Brad Pitt. Would that we could!”

Cigarettes, of course, were an important part of setting the scene for what it was like to be an advertising exec on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s. “I remember at some point, having a conversation with the executives at AMC,” Hamm said. “They said, ‘Do they have to smoke?’ That was like, Are you f–king kidding me? Yes, they literally have to. They’re addicted to cigarettes. It’s kind of why they’re sold. They’re super popular!”

During the panel, Hamm reminisced about how much “Mad Men” changed his life. “I started that when I was 35 years old. Went right through to the age of 45,” he said. “So it’s kind of a transitional moment in life and time. Our real lives happen, relationships started and ended, and people had babies, got married and got divorced, and all this sh-t happened in the real world. It almost seemed displaced from that in a lot, in a weird way, because so much of working on the show was stepping into a time capsule for real.

[From Variety]

The thing about AMC wondering if they really had to “smoke” on camera is so funny, because Lucky Strike cigarettes were such a huge plot point across multiple seasons of Mad Men. Like, Don even wrote a letter to the New York Times after they lost the Lucky Strike account! Anyway, I go back and forth on Jon Hamm – I’m pretty sure he’s a massive douche in real life, but I also think he gave one of the greatest acting performances of all time as Don Draper. I kept wanting Hamm to back it up with his post-Mad Men roles, but I think he realized pretty quickly that he would never find that kind of meaty role and writing again.

Photos courtesy of WENN.com/Wenn/Avalon, Kevin Perkins, PacificCoastNews.com/Avalon, Avalon Red.

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Jon Hamm

Jon Hamm never wanted to ‘just be a leading man’, he wants Jeff Goldblum’s career

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Long-time readers will remember, I used to adore Jon Hamm. Then we found out about his gross behavior when he was in a fraternity in college, and I sort of lost my crush. So do a lot of people. Around the end of Mad Men, Hamm also went into rehab and he left his longtime partner Jennifer Westfeldt. A few years later, he took up with Anna Osceola and they got married. I think one of the strangest parts of Hamm’s journey in the public eye is that we genuinely believed he was a throwback to an old-Hollywood movie star, and it turns out he was just a cliche frat-bro (at best) the whole time. Now that I’m not part of the Hamm fandom (Hammdom?), I can admit that I think it’s funny that his career has faltered so steadily post-Mad Men. He was supposed to transition from Mad Men into movie stardom and it hasn’t worked out that way in the past nine years. So Hamm covers the latest issue of the Hollywood Reporter and we should take this as his attempt to rebrand himself. The headline of the piece is “Jon Hamm Doesn’t Want to Be Your Leading Man.” Good? Because I’m over it. Some highlights:

He has vitiligo: “It’s waxed and waned. It’s a pigmentation thing. Michael Jackson had it. It affects the Black community significantly more because you have melanin in your skin and it goes away. But I remember waking up one day while shooting the pilot, and it looked like someone had dropped bleach on my chin. Then I looked at my hands and shins, and they had these patches on them. I went to see a couple of doctors, and they were like, “You can try this cream. We don’t really have a solution. But you’re white, it’s probably fine.” Which is what people have said to white people their whole life: “You’re white, you’re probably fine.”

His perspective on ‘Mad Men’ has changed: “You go through it and it’s happening to you — all the notoriety, the press, the fame. But it’s a thing where I look back on it, and I wish I would’ve paid more attention…because it’s happening to you so viscerally and it’s such a swirl all at once and there’s no guidebook, and you go, “Sh-t, man.” But it’s fun to be at the center of the conversation for our business. I’ve had a bit of that with Fargo. And it’s nice to be back in the conversation, to be part of something you’re proud of and that’s hitting people in a way that they want to talk about it.

He’s in therapy: “[I first went] After my dad died [a decade later]. My [half] sister was like, “You are spiraling. You need help.” And I was like, “No, I don’t. No, I don’t.” Then you eventually go, “Oh, yeah, I do.” And if you’re smart enough or present enough in your own feelings, you go, “This is actually tremendously helpful.” And that’s what it was. I went to therapy; I got put on Prozac and was pulled out of the spiral that I was in. I got my brain chemically altered, and I was like, “OK, this is clearly something that I needed.” I check in with it all the time. I’m still in therapy. I have a wonderful therapist. And I understand that when I’m — “distracted” is the wrong word, but when I’m not present — that’s when I can start to spiral into something that’s not healthy. And I go, “I don’t want to do that. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy.”

His thoughts on Matthew Weiner being accused of harassment: “That was a fun time with all of that coming down and going, “Where does anything fall? And are we allowed to have the conversation or is it just immediately shut down? And is it binary or is it a continuum?”… listen, there definitely needed to be a reckoning of some sort. But the binary situation felt very unhelpful because it was tarring a lot of people with a similar brush, where you’re like, “Oh, is that the same? Because it doesn’t feel like it’s the same at all.” I felt that with Aziz Ansari, like, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t feel the same as Harvey [Weinstein].”

He really was vying for roles that went to Matt Damon & Ben Affleck: “There was certainly a version of, “Is this what you want? Do you want to be Ben Affleck?” And I worked with Ben on The Town, and I was like, “OK, I get that, that’s a certain path, but I don’t know if I want that.” I love Ben, he’s a wonderful actor and filmmaker, but I was like, “I don’t know if that’s for me.” I wanted to do different things instead of just being a leading man, whatever that is. And I don’t know how different my career would have been, but I know it hasn’t been the traditional leading man thing. Maybe it’s because I am a little more quirky. I know I look like I should be that guy.”

He’s been talking to Marvel for a while: “It’s not like they were saying, “We want you to be Iron Man.” But there were a lot of conversations, and I’m still in those. I talk to the guys that run Marvel and DC. And I’m a comic book nerd. So, we’ll see. Even that part of the industry is changing… I’ve pitched myself for a couple parts of the Marvel universe, I don’t want to say what exactly, but it was a part of a comic book that I really liked. I was like, “Are you going to do this story?” And they were like, “Yeah, we’re actually thinking of that.” I go, “Good. I should be the guy.” So maybe it’ll work out.

A career he admires: “I look at a guy like Jeff Goldblum’s career — and I know Jeff a bit, we used to have the same therapist — and I’m just like, “God, how awesome to be able to do all the things he’s done.” He had his leading man phase, and he does Marvel and he’ll just roll through and steal the scene, and then he’s doing commercials and he’s funny as sh-t. I see him out and he’s happy. So, consciously or not, I’m modeling my life to be that: varied and happy and fulfilled.

[From THR]

So, I’ll backtrack a little bit and say that it’s not that Hollywood wasn’t into Hamm, it was a combination of Hamm not knowing which projects to do and Hamm not really having a plan for what should come after Mad Men. Clearly, there were some big offers or job opportunities and he just hasn’t taken them. A decade ago, people wanted him to be the next Ben Affleck and he was like, no, I’d rather by Jeff Goldblum? A character actor masquerading as a leading man.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of THR.

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Lindsay Lohan wore Alexandre Vauthier to the ‘Mean Girls’ premiere in NYC

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Here are some photos from last night’s big New York premiere of Mean Girls: The Musical. I’m not into this at all, but I’m glad Tina Fey is getting paid, I guess, and I’m sure there’s a market for it. Tina has always had such a soft spot for Lindsay Lohan, and Lohan came out for the premiere (although from what I can see, Lohan doesn’t even have a cameo in the film). Lohan wore Alexandre Vauthier and she looks like she got some face updates for the premiere. Tina’s ensemble is so… lmao.

Megan Thee Stallion is part of the Mean Girls soundtrack and I’m sure Meg was a huge fan of the original film. Megan looked amazing and she posed with Reneé Rapp (who plays Regina George).

Jon Hamm was there with his new wife Anna. Hamm has a small role in the film, as one of the teachers.

Here’s Angourie Rice, she plays Cady.

Busy Philipps was there with her daughter Birdie!!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

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Jennifer Aniston didn’t want an intimacy coordinator on ‘TMS’: ‘I’m from the olden days’

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One of the best things to come out of #MeToo and the larger movement for accountability within Hollywood is that nowadays, there’s an intimacy coordinator on every set where there are sex scenes or nudity. It’s no longer just a scantily-clad woman surrounded by an all-male crew, trying to navigate the situation by herself. In recent years, so many actors (male and female) have praised the use of intimacy coordinators and talked about how much safer it feels for everyone, to have someone acting as a neutral third party, helping actors talk about what they will and won’t do on screen and helping to choreograph what happens on-screen. Well, Jennifer Aniston is not one of those actors praising the use of intimacy coordinators. Aniston had a chance to film sex scenes with Jon Hamm in The Morning Show and she was like “I can do this myself!”

Variety: Alex and Paul’s love scene was more explicit than we’re used to seeing on the show. How did you guys prepare for that with director Mimi Leder?

Aniston: Having Mimi there, you’re protected. I never felt uncomfortable. Jon was such a gentleman, always — I mean every move, every cut, “You OK?” It was also very choreographed. That’s the beauty of Mimi and our gorgeous editor, the music and lighting. So, you don’t prepare. They asked us if we wanted an intimacy coordinator. I’m from the olden days, so I was like, “What does that mean?” They said, “Where someone asks you if you’re OK,” and I’m like, “Please, this is awkward enough!” We’re seasoned — we can figure this one out. And we had Mimi there.

[From Variety]

The intimacy coordinator should have been there, I don’t care if Aniston is “from the olden days.” Harvey Weinstein was from the olden days too. Yes, it’s probably a lot different when you’re working with a female director and you’ve known your costar for many years (as Aniston has known Hamm for decades). But still: it should be a given, at this point, that any f–king time any actor takes off their clothes or has to do a love scene, there’s a coordinator on set. Aniston is so antiquated.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.

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Jon Hamm

Jon Hamm now believes marriage is ‘deeper, richer’ than just dating

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While we’ll never know what really happened between Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt, Hamm left enough bread crumbs along the way to indicate that he was the one who never wanted to get married. He used to say he didn’t believe in marriage, that it was all a sham. Hamm and Westfeldt spent 19 years together – she was with him when he was nobody, when he had no power and no job and she was the one supporting him. Then, just as Mad Men was coming to a close, they fell apart. He quickly moved on with Anna Osceola and they got married in Big Sur last weekend after dating for maybe five years? While everybody is allowed to change their minds and grow and become different people, I still f–king loathe when men do this – bitch about marriage for years and then suddenly get married and they act like they invented it. Well, Hamm had a lot to say about the beauty of marriage on a podcast recorded just before his wedding:

Jon Hamm, 52, appeared on Tuesday’s episode of iHeartRadio’s Table for Two podcast with host Bruce Bozzi, and the actor referred to his marriage to Osceola, 35, as “the exciting part of life and it’s a signpost and a signifier of the next chapter and phase [of life]. Ideally, it gives you and your partner a sense of stability and comfort and an identifying capacity that is better, deeper, richer, than ‘it’s my girlfriend’ or ‘my boyfriend’ or what have you.”

“It’s exciting, it’s exciting because it’s all potential, it’s all possibility, and it’s all positive,” Hamm said on the podcast episode, which was recorded in the days leading up to his wedding.

“I suppose there’s two ways to look at anything like that, which is like ‘oh, what if it’s terrible, but the other way is like ‘this is meant to be something wonderful.’ So you lean into that aspect of it, which I have been,” he continued during the interview. “It’s the reason why I really wanted to do it and really leaned into it and [marriage] is the thing that leads to the next thing of life and that’s what I hope – and it’s the journey and it’s exciting.”

While Hamm noted that “all of the minutiae of planning [a wedding] and dealing with it can be mind-numbing,” he said he felt “a sort of calm [that] settled over me” in the days leading up to the ceremony as he began to reflect on what the ceremony would signify for his life.

“At the end of the day, the important thing is… I’m gonna look out and I’m gonna see this whole group of people – and it’s not a very big group of people. It’s well, under 100 people – but a group of people that are all there because they’re supporting me and Anna,” he said during the podcast. “And that’s great. I think the last time that happened to me was high school graduation.”

[From People]

Again, people are allowed to change their minds, but damn, I feel so sorry for Jennifer Westfeldt. She wasted so many years on this loser. Oh, and to make matters even more cliche, Us Weekly reports that Hamm and Osceola are “thinking of having kids soon, Jon feels like this is the beginning.” Beginning a marriage and a family at 52 years old… that’s something women are rarely able to do.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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Jon Hamm, 52, and Anna Osceola, 35, married in Big Sur this weekend

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In February, Jon Hamm got engaged to Anna Osceola, his girlfriend of “two years.” I questioned the timeline, especially given that Hamm and Osceola likely met in 2015/16 and probably started dating in 2017. But no matter – the point is that Hamm spent 18-plus years with Jennifer Westfeldt before they fell apart, and Hamm married his next serious girlfriend. They were married in Big Sur, which is likely where they met during the final season of Mad Men.

Jon Hamm and Anna Osceola are married, PEOPLE can confirm. The Mad Men and Confess, Fletch costars tied the knot on Saturday, according to TMZ.

The couple wed at Anderson Canyon in Big Sur — the same place where the Mad Men finale filmed — where they were joined by various celebrity pals, including Billy Crudup, Paul Rudd and Tina Fey, the outlet reported.

TMZ said the couple’s walkup song was the theme to the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice.

Representatives for both Hamm, 52, and Osceola, 35, did not comment to PEOPLE.

[From People]

I’m including some social media photos of the wedding below. While the locale looks beautiful and rustic, Hamm wore a traditional tuxedo and Anna wore a lovely silk/satin wedding gown, like they were getting married at the Ritz. He doesn’t seem like a Big Sur-wedding kind of guy, but what do I know? They both looked good on their wedding day. I guess Jennifer Westfeldt didn’t attend. Imagine spending close to two decades with someone and the breakup was so bad, you never see each other again or speak to each other or talk about one another. Yikes.

Jon Hamm marries fiancée Anna Osceola where they filmed ‘Mad Men’ finale https://t.co/nbcbDE81Ub pic.twitter.com/AZ4wgLX04m

— Page Six (@PageSix) June 25, 2023

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.

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Kylie Jenner wore Maison Margiela to the VF Oscar party: cute or too stiff?

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Call me crazy, but I like the fact that the Kardashian-Jenners regularly come out for the Vanity Fair Oscar party. I don’t want to see them at the Oscars, mind you, but it’s fine and even fun to see them dressed up at the VF party. Kylie and Kendall came out for this year’s VF Oscar party and both of them put some thought into their looks. Kylie wore Maison Margiela Couture – a custom piece – while Kendall wore a vintage (2008) Jean Paul Gaultier. No joke, I love Kendall’s dress. She looks great here. Kylie’s dress just looks too stiff.

Gigi Hadid in Zac Posen. Awful! It reminds me of Chloe Sevigny’s quip about Gwyneth Paltrow complaining about the Met Gala: “maybe her sleeves were too tight.” Like, this isn’t a party dress because of the sleeves.

Sienna Miller in Fendi. A weirdly lowkey look. Granted, she hasn’t been in-our-faces for years now, but this is shockingly subdued.

Jon Hamm and Anna Osceola, who are newly engaged. She… reminds me a bit of Jennifer Westfeldt, his former partner. They’re not twins or anything, but I do think he has a physical type. I like the black-and-white coordination, that’s all I’ve got.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.