No one on “Mad Men” was mad looking at Jon Hamm.
John Slattery — who played Roger Sterling in the iconic AMC series — revealed that the cast was often so mesmerized by Hamm, 51, that they would forget their lines.
“When Hamm walked into a room in that get-up, people would just go catatonic,” Slattery, 60, told the Independent about Hamm, who played ad exec Don Draper.
“Guest stars would sometimes walk up to him and their lines would go right out of their heads,” he said.
Slattery joked that “it happened on more than one occasion” because “they just wouldn’t know what to do.”
But Hamm wasn’t the only star on the show who made fellow actors go gaga, according to Slattery.
“[Christina Hendricks] would walk into the room and people would s–t themselves — it was amazing,” he recalled.
“When Hamm walked into a room in that get-up, people would just go catatonic,” Slattery said.AMC“Mad Men” premiered in 2007 and concluded in 2015 after seven award-winning seasons. The Emmy-winning drama chronicled the advertising agency Sterling Cooper as it deals with the changing times and conflicts of the 1960s.
While it’s hard to imagine Draper played by anyone else, Slattery also confessed that he was up for the part when the series was first coming to fruition in the late 2000s.
“[Hamm] claims I was in a bad mood the whole time we shot the first episode because of this, but I don’t think that’s true,” the Boston native stated. “Eventually I saw him, and I was like, ‘Oh — they sure do have that guy.'”
Hamm and Slattery in a Season 7 episode of “Mad Men” in 2014.Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC Hamm appeared on SiriusXM’s “Pop Culture Spotlight with Jessica Shaw” in September and discussed trying to distance himself from his Draper persona.
The actor said he took on a cameo in Kristen Wiig’s 2011 female-centered comedy “Bridesmaids,” playing jerk Ted who only wanted to be friends with benefits with Wiig’s character Annie Walker.
“I did that movie before there was a part before there was a script, I said ‘yes’ to it. And [my] agents went, ‘Oh, well, s–t. How do we, you know, ask for money?’ And I was like, ‘Don’t worry about it. It just, let me let go have fun with friends,’” Hamm said.
He then pointed out that he couldn’t refuse Wiig after they developed a friendship during his “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig back in 2010.
“We were in a couple sketches together and got along like a house on fire, and she said, ‘Will you please be in my movie? Please be in my movie.’ You know, nobody knew it was gonna be the global success that it was,” Hamm said. “But I knew it would be funny. And especially with that cast, I was like, ‘Sure, of course. Are you kidding me? Thank you for asking. Of course, I’ll do that.’”
“Mostly I drive [my agents] crazy because I say yes to everything, you know?” he added. “I’m always showing up for people’s podcasts or what have you. But that’s what I like doing.”
