Many people have been “over” Jon Hamm since we learned the details around a particular brutal story involving his fraternity hazing some pledges. This happened more than 20 years ago, but the details of the situation are horrifying and awful. We learned about that last year, when it seemed like Hamm’s life was falling apart in general. Mad Men was ending, he broke up with Jennifer Westfeldt, and he ended up in rehab for substance abuse. Now he has a new movie, Keeping Up with the Joneses, and he’s trying to… I don’t know, NOT talk about those old frat-boy-hazing stories. He’ll talk about anything else besides that. Hamm gave a lengthy interview to Mr. Porter’s Journal and surprisingly, the fraternity story didn’t come up at all. You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
He has weekly therapy: “I find it very helpful. I know the English are a lot more sceptical about it than Americans are, but maybe after Brexit, you’ll change your minds.”
His time in rehab: “It has all these connotations, but it’s just an extended period of talking about yourself. People go for all sorts of reasons, not all of which are chemically related. But there’s something to be said for pulling yourself out of the grind for a period of time and concentrating on recalibrating the system. And it works. It’s great.”
Whether he’ll have kids: “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s necessarily an imperative. I’m not going to psychoanalyse myself here, but… well, never say never. I’ve got nieces and nephews and I’ve been a teacher. I’ve probably been around kids a lot more than all my friends. I feel if you shut that off entirely you calcify. You turn into that guy.”
He doesn’t understand social media: “I speak to young kids starting out and they can’t even get into an audition unless they have a certain number of followers on Instagram. Of course, it doesn’t mean anything – you can go out and buy 100,000 followers. But it becomes meaningful if business decides it’s meaningful. In time there will be a correction and we will look back on this period and say, ‘Wow. We were really dumb.’”
He’s been in therapy ever since his dad died when he was 20: “After I’d lost my dad, I had this horrible paralysing inertia – and no one in my family was capable of dealing with it. So what do you do? Go and see a professional. I preach it from the mountaintops. I know it’s a luxury and it’s not something everyone can afford. But if you can, do it. It’s like a mental gym.”
What he learned from playing Don Draper: “I don’t share a lot of sartorial clues with Mr Draper, other than we’re the same suit size, but it did open my eyes to buying clothes that fit properly. I generally try and dress a little more appropriate to my age. It’s epidemic out here. So often I’m like, ‘What are you wearing? You have an Ed Hardy T-shirt and a wallet chain and biker boots and you’re 65 years old?’”
He turned down superhero movies? He has turned down superhero movies, despite being a Marvel fan as a boy. “I was very hesitant to be involved with any of that stuff. It takes so long as they don’t want one movie, they want three movies with two crossovers… You’re [just] doing it for the exposure.”
Frustration over the lack of roles: “From a features standpoint, it’s really difficult to get hard dramas made if you’re not Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Denzel Washington or Ben Affleck. That’s what those boys do and there are only so many slots. There are five or six leads who get the first look and if you’re lucky you might get a second. But hope springs eternal around this time of year. We’re done with the capes and tights and laser beams and we’re starting to see the serious movies that are up for awards.”
Growing up in St. Louis, Black Lives Matter: “Police violence is such a difficult thing to comprehend. If you sat me next to a black person who had also grown up in St Louis, simply by the nature of the colour of our skin, we’re going to have completely different experiences. It’s so difficult for people to grasp as it just rams up against our ideas of fairness and authority. The more and more sh-t that comes out like this, it’s harder and harder for people to dismiss. I’m an optimist. And I do think the more we find out, the more the centre of gravity in the culture will shift. I hate this idea that nothing matters. It can’t all be a dumbshow. Sorry, that got real dark real quick.”
He also describes himself as “shy” at one point, which I don’t really believe – “shy” is not the word I would use to describe him, but I’ll buy that he’s not happy-go-lucky or a total famewhore. He also makes it sound like he’s single but he doesn’t want to talk about his love life at all. I tend to think he and Westfeldt are still spending time together but yeah, maybe he’s technically single. What else? I like what he says about therapy and I hope it’s helped him. I think he is sort of bitter about the lack of roles for… attractive white guys in their 40s. Because we all know how harsh Hollywood is for those guys! Maybe he should have taken a superhero movie after all, eh?
Photos courtesy of Mr. Porter/Journal.
Sorry you can’t drink anymore Jon, because booze is the only thing getting me through Brexit. I suspect therapy would not be as efficient.
Especially now that cost of living is ACTUALLY going up (thanks unilever). Just can’t wait for the interest rates to shoot up, too. Ugh.
It’s an unmitigated disaster. Sterling could be at parity with the dollar by the end of 2017.
Mr Sixer’s firm is looking at an 18% increase in import costs as it stands today. And it will only get worse. Some of the work I do (thankfully not all) is also going to be susceptible to Brexit, so I’m looking at rediversifying back to taking on some boring grunt work that I did when I was first starting up my own business. Just in case.
To say I’m getting resentful is an understatement!
@Sixer – literally shaking in my boots at the thought of mortgage interest going up. Luckily husband and I are both academics so fairly protected in terms of continuing demand and gap filling by the govt (that is, until Amber Rudd f*cks that up). Hope all works out for you guys – such a shitty shitty time. I was firmly agaisnt brexit, but I truly believed there was a proper plan for when/if it did happen – turns out not.
Clare
I feel a bit of a fraud for moaning in many ways. I *will* be ok. I haven’t had a mortgage for the best part of a decade (moving from London to Devon literally paid it off in one fell swoop). I *can* diversify and still get decent work even if I like it as much. Mr Sixer has excellent contacts and would almost certainly walk into another job straightaway if his firm ever folded. But we have worked hard to make our lives as we want them and as comfortable and fulfilling as they are. It’s hard not resent all that effort and security snatched away.
But if even comfortable people like me are feeling it, then what about everyone else? Food and energy price inflation are going to cause untold misery among people less able to absorb the pressures.
But we have worked hard to make our lives as we want them and as comfortable and fulfilling as they are. It’s hard not resent all that effort and security snatched away.
THIS THIS THIS
I am bitter than I have worked my arse off for years on end, and just as we are reaching a stage in our lives where we could have some certainty/disposable income etc, we are having to worry about interest rates going up!
I know that is selfish (and a little smug), but ugghhh
About the sterling – many people are buying sterling because it’s cheaper and they are counting on Britain getting through this so by the time sterling goes up, everyone sells up.
So now the world has more speculators.
ITA – even Mark Carney has come out today saying that sadly things will get tough for those on lower income as food prices and the cost of services goes up – pensioners and vulnerable people will get hit, again. The equally sad thing is that it will hit those communities that voted to leave the worst as many of those communities are made up of those on the lower income scale. I live in London and have to rent as I can’t afford to buy, i guess owning my own place will remain a lifelong pipe dream.
As the saying goes – be careful what you wish for as you just might get it.
completely completely disagree with Hamm on the therapy thing…only from personal experience, but people in the UK seem so much more open to it and in my age group (early thirties) so many more of my British/European friends have taken advantage of therapy and counselling than my American friends.
I think the fact that many types of therapy are also covered under the NHS make it far more accessible (and therefore popular/normal).
Having said that, I grew up in a small town in Georgia, and now live in Cambridge (the real one, in the UK), so I accept that the demographic in terms of socio-economics and education is quite different. Similarly, I suspect when Hamm talks about ‘America’ he means California and New York.
I think it’s a worried well thing, perhaps?
In my experience, we Brits are perfectly willing to access counselling after trauma (be that divorce, job loss, victim of crime, etc) but wouldn’t call it “therapy”. People with mild mental ill health seem to have no problem accessing talking therapies and it is often prescribed on the NHS. CBT is a common option.
I think there is a perception this side of the Pond that Americans who can afford it will see a therapist in order to keep their mental health well-tuned, as it were, as a kind of prophylactic. I can imagine Hamm thinking of this kind of thing when he made that comment, because that approach is very uncommon here.
This whole country will need therapy after Trump.
‘People with mild mental ill health seem to have no problem accessing talking therapies’
That isn’t true atall…its drugs drugs and drugs for months and months on end.
If you arnt sure about something done state it categorically?
Really? Not a sufferer myself but know several people who have completed CBT and other talking therapy courses via the NHS – none of whom had a lengthy wait and a couple of whom avoided medication through it. And, as my remark was about attitudes as per the Hamm quote, not really about service availability, none of whom were in any way reluctant to go that route.
This may be a postcode thing vis a vis service availability?
Accessing MH services themselves are a fairly quick turnaround via the IAPT system. That first appointment meets govt targets and you are then ‘in the system’. Accessing counselling/therapy/specialist help can often and in the vast majority of areas involve a lengthy waiting process. This is the norm I’m afraid.
As an aside – the CBT offered is often in the form of a computer programme in order to shorten waiting lists and attain targets or provided via a switchboard service. Not face to face at first instance as the waiting list is too large and need too great.
The CBT services are also very often only offered on the basis of 6 sessions which whilst helpful for first onset problems etc isn’t appropriate for a long term fix for much
Thanks, Ronaldinhio. I think certainly a postcode thing then. My GP surgery has an attached CBT practitioner for both group and individual sessions. (Yes, part time and yes, one practitioner for three linked surgeries, but an extant, accessible service, nonetheless.) It may be that we are rural? The nearest major hospitals are 25 miles away and so we do have attached services that perhaps urban patients would expect to attend a hospital for? We also have a physiotherapist attached to the GP surgery, for example.
I’m aware of the severe limitations of mental health services on the NHS for more serious conditions – particularly CAMHS. The fight for parity of esteem is an important one.
But back to the original point of what Hamm said: I don’t think Britons are any less keen to access therapy AFTER A DIAGNOSIS. But I do think Britons are less likely to consider therapy as a tool to keep mental health fine-tuned.
Clare, you are completely correct. I also think therapists in the UK are better trained. Even in a big city like Boston, it’s a total mixed bag who you get, how they got into therapy, where they studied and if it was a legitimate program or not. Americans are still in love with this idea that everyone gets to be their own boss and make up their own theories of everything and be their own authority on everything. It makes for fun teenage years, but it’s a hard transition to dealing with other people or being a professional.
I also find that in America you do not distinguish between coaching and psychology. When I was studying there I had to be sent to 2 therapy sessions because I was a foreigner and they wanted to meet me just in case I got super homesick, etc. The woman in charge of my theraphy was a councelor, which is unheard of in Argentina. Only a psychologist or psychiatrist can be in charge of therapy.
The problem in the UK is that they are in many cases moving counselling into the realm of wellbeing. Soon the only way to access decent therapy will be via private practice as it is in the US.
So if you your company used to offer 12 sessions with a therapist – you might now get 4 sessions with a befriender
Also the NHS had many targets to meet regarding talking therapies and most weren’t met.
For significant and long term counselling there is often a NHS waiting list of more than 12 months. Many areas don’t offer the services required or recommended by the NICE guidelines at all.
Also for all the talk of UK therapists being trained better than those in the US there is no legal requirement in the UK for any therapist or counsellor to have any training at all before seeing clients. All they need is a sign.
I find American in general are more open. Just look at how prominently therapy takes a role in our culture. Now living in France where it’s almost taboo, I say Americans are a lot more open than most people of the world. I’ve tried to get so many people to talk to therapists and they’re like no it means your crazy. Suicide here is also a stigma. It’s so strange to me how little regard the French give to the practice of therapy. But the French do provide me with a free therapist so I thank them for that. There is help, you can get it, it just needs to carry less of a stigma here.
trying to… I don’t know, NOT talk about those old frat-boy-hazing stories. He’ll talk about anything else besides that. – was he asked about that? I’m not trying to justify his behavior many years ago but do we really expect anyone publicaly talk about their wrongdoings when no one is directly pointing towards them? I don’t even know how his frat boy hazing stories look to him now because ot seems like the interviewers are not really interested in that
My guess is that period in his life loomed large in therapy sessions, as related to loss of his father as well. He may have worked through it and not be keen on resurrecting it all for pure personal reasons as well as professional. What he did suggested deep anger, but he doesn’t seem like an angry guy now and people who work with him seem to genuinely like him. So he may be successfully reformed.
he’s unbelievable handsome in person but seems so vulnerable which is not necessarily a negative thing, it’s just like he doesn’t seem to have a strong sense of self, hence his relationship of codependence with Jennifer. Idk, I’m just rambling. I don’t think he enjoys being single, he probably just needs a strong woman by his side, someone able to “mother” him
In my mind keep pairing him with b*tchy, control-freak and commanding types like Charlize Theron, or Robin Wright, probably Robin is a better choice, yeah….I’m totally shipping them: talking about good looking couple. Don Draper and Claire Underwood…whoa!
I actually can sort of relate to this. I don’t feel like over here there’s (much) stigma attached to going to therapy after a trauma of some sort, but certainly among my acquaintance people would think you were very ‘hippyish’ if you went just to keep your mental health well-tuned as Sixer put it.
Therapy is a way of life in Argentina, it’s even covered by health care, so I really don’t get the prejudice or misconception that “crazy” or “damaged” people need it. It’s about creating a space where you will not be judged and can speak freely and work through different issues (and not all need to be Important Issues) with someone who will be objective and has the tools/skills to help.
His comment about therapy and Brexit was meant as a joke that perhaps most people didn’t understand as it was said to a British journalist for an article that appeared in a British publication. As someone who is perceived as an “alpha male,” I think it is admirable and courageous to open up and promote the value of therapy, especially given the difficult issues he has had to face.
He is such a talented actor that most people mistakenly think that he is actually Donald Draper, and not someone who portrayed that very flawed character for 10 years — there has been no photographic or other evidence other than some gossip writers cowardly “blind items” that suggest his has cheated. There is more evidence that he is a polite, kind person who has sometimes used his celebrity for activism to promote the importance of teachers, marriage equality, stand up for cancer, St Jude’s hospital, establishing a scholarship at his former high school, etc — I met him in 2012 when he came to my city during the presidential election to encourage those of us who were volunteering to get out the vote. He was kind, genuinely interested in not only the election, but how and why we became volunteers.
He did mention in an interview early in 2008 that after losing both of his parents, and leaving his hometown to go to college, he was did some things in college he was not proud of and since that story broke it is also the case that his behaviors were adjudicated by the US legal system. After his father died and that incident, he returned home, started to drink at age 20 and became clinically depressed and his sister helped him seek treatment. After he transferred to his hometown college, he worked at a child care center for three years because as a child who was in child care he always felt that there were never any male teachers as role models.
He paid his dues and is trying to help reduce the stigma attached to therapy as a treatment for mental health issues. He has probably moved on from his long-term relationship (check his IMDb page) but his former partner has not (check her IMDb page, her official website, and her facebook page). They probably do spend some time together but there is no evidence that it is of a romantic nature as they share a dog and co-own two properties and are probably trying to figure out how to be equitable and fair about their financial entanglement.
A nice thing to do is to have some empathy for his emotional struggles, enjoy the entertainment from his performances, and wish the guy well in his future.
And he is devastatingly handsome in person and seemed embarrassed by it when it is mentioned.
Are you his publicist?
he seems like such a judgy person. Social media, superhero movies, Paris Hilton, Kim kardashian… I’m surprised that a serious actor like himself keeps taking shots at them, does he feel threatened? or does he feel jealous that he’s not part of these cultural phenomena? hmm
I wouldn’t consider him judgy, but he definitely thinks about things and isn’t afraid to voice his opinions.
He seems SO judgy about everything.
You’re complaining about judgy people on this site?
‘attractive white guys in their 40s. Because we all know how harsh Hollywood is for those guys!’
nice way to take his comments out of context
‘“I find it very helpful. I know the English are a lot more sceptical about it than Americans are, but maybe after Brexit, you’ll change your minds.”’
Condescending arsehole
He makes interesting, intelligent comments in interviews and people who have worked with him always have positive things to say. I have no idea how he was in his relationship with Jennifer Westfeldt and what he did as a college student was awful but I like him. I feel like it’s not fair to judge people for a mistake they made at age 20 when it’s obvious that they have not made the behavior a life long pattern. There was a lot of judgement of him when the frat boy stuff came out which I thought was unfair given how long ago it was. I don’t feel it’s necessary for him to make a public statement. My guess is that he has made amends to the victim privately.
God, he’s beautiful. Think about how much better Gone Girl would have been with him in the lead role. He’s just a much better actor than Ben Affleck. I’d like to see him do some more emotional dramas like Leo DiCaprio has done (i.e., Shutter Island).
If he comes across as vulnerable, I think it’s because he’s terribly insecure. He isn’t very intelligent and he’s terrified that people will realize it. In the few interviews I’ve seen him in, he reeked of insecurity and seemed SO dumb. It made me cringe. I felt sorry for him. He’s a devilishly handsome man, no doubt, and I’m sure Jennifer tried to polish him up for public appearances like a gender-swapped Pygmalion.