A-Line: Celebrity StyleJon Hamm’s Worst Job Ever
These days, Jon Hamm is most often associated with his breakout role of Don Draper, the hard-drinking, womanizing New York ad exec rising to success in the 1960s on the AMC drama "Mad Men." But in real-life, the 41-year-old has held some much less glamorous jobs over the years, one of which was especially, er, unusual.
"I did set dressing on some soft-core porn films. That was hands down the worst. I was working on the crew from seven to seven, and it was horribly depressing," he reveals in the April issue of Playboy. "I'm sure there are more terrible day jobs in L.A., but it's definitely on the lower end of the spectrum of the wonder of moviemaking. It wasn't even that much money, but it was money."And like many once-aspiring actors, Hamm — who spent more than a decade auditioning, taking smaller parts, and hoping for a big break — also logged his time as a waiter. "Waiting tables was a part of my identity," he says in the interview. "I'm comfortable behind a bar, and I'm comfortable wearing an apron."
After a whopping six auditions (or maybe more, he quite can't remember) for the lead role in "Mad Men," which premiered in 2007, he got the news he had been waiting for … in an elevator, which also happened to be occupied at the time by a famous European soccer player. "The woman in charge of making the decisions said, 'You probably know this by now, but you've got the job,'" Hamm recalls. "Literally the moment they told me I got it, the elevator opened and the lobby was filled with photographers. The lights were flashing and people were rushing toward us, shouting, 'Oh my God, oh my God!' … I was still on the adrenaline rush of getting the part. But nope, it was just some excited Germans who wanted to meet their soccer hero."
Through it all, Hamm has remained decidedly un-Don Draper-ish, considering he's been with the same woman — fellow actor Jennifer Westfeldt — for more than 14 years. As a 40something couple in a long-term relationship who just starred together in a movie called "Friends With Kids" (which Westfeldt, 42, also wrote, produced, and directed), the two have been fielding the requisite "When are you having kids?" question a lot lately. But they're not about to give a definite answer.
"We've seen enough of our friends, who shall obviously remain nameless, become parents, and sometimes it's hard not to think they shouldn't have had kids," he admits to the magazine. "I don't have a driving force to have a baby. That said, I'm in a committed relationship, and if it ever came up, I'm not ruling anything out. There's a reason it hasn't been prioritized, because I don't think either of us has that pull. I don't know; it could happen tomorrow. I have no clue."
Not that the two are using their current childfree days to do anything too wild … like have sex in the wilderness. On the contrary: "It's been awhile. In the era of TMZ, I don't think outdoor sex is a particularly good idea," Hamm shares. "It's one of those things that sound way better than they actually are. There's something not sexy about all the twigs and bugs and sand. You end up with stuff in places you don't want it. It always looks better in the well-lit Skinemax version."
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