JON HAMM IS excited. And rightfully so.
“It’s always fun when you get to do stuff while you’re making a show,” he says over Zoom on a mid-April morning. “I enjoyed the few times I had to do stuff in Mad Men, when I was swimming or something.”
Clad in a gray checkered suit and red-tinted glasses over his eyes, when Hamm talks about stuff, he’s referring to moments that allow him to put his physicality on display in Apple TV+’s new series Your Friends and Neighbors. This includes: aggressively playing tennis (his character, Andy “Coop” Cooper played at Princeton), running full-speed through the streets of the show’s suburban locale, and perhaps most often of all, being incredibly nimble as he practices a unique brand of thievery, sneaking around the homes of wealthy people and stealing ludicrously expensive items they likely won’t even notice are gone (or so he hopes).
Hold up, what was that last one? A lot going on there. But that’s the basic premise of the new show; a far cry from Don Draper, indeed. In Your Friends and Neighbors, Hamm plays a guy who, much like Jon Hamm in real life, appears on the surface to have it made. He’s got a great job, a great family, lives in a great neighbourhood – and, yeah, looks like Jon Hamm. But, folks, this is a TV show, and things are never that easy. When Coop’s personal and professional life starts falling apart at the seams – as he’s working through a divorce he also loses his job – in his frustration with it all, he finds himself in need of money. That’s when he discovers and decides to embrace a life of thievery and (literal) white collar crime.
Hamm didn’t do any sort of particular training or preparation for those physical tasks, though; He’s just trying to keep healthy for the sake of keeping healthy at this point. “I’m 54 now, and I was 53 when I shot the first season of the show,” he says. “I’m probably in the best shape of my life, which is nice to be able to say at this advanced age.”
Hamm playing tennis in Your Friends and Neighbors.
Your Friends and Neighbors focuses, through both the story and themes, on thinking about the things that are important in life; How much do money, status, and material possessions really matter to any of us? The show takes a hard look at the wisdom and perspective we gain in life that we wind up wishing we knew earlier.
“I think it’s important to maintain an ‘Eyes Wide Open,’ presence at all times in your life,” Hamm says. “Not all of us need to turn to a life of crime – that’s obviously a very dramatic storytelling decision. But life boils down to a series of interconnected decisions, and sometimes those decisions aren’t made by you, they’re made by other people, and you’re forced to live with the consequences. It’s a crazy thing, this thing we call life, and sometimes it leads us in unexpected directions.”
Your Friends and Neighbors is one of the more unique shows you’ll watch this year. In addition to Hamm, the cast includes stars like Amanda Peet and Olivia Munn along with several newcomers; Its tone is sharp enough to make you laugh often, but dark enough to have you worried that someone could get shot in the face. Imagine the stylized darkness and visual flourishes of Trainspottting, but instead applied to the world of tired suburban malaise. It’s the kind of watchable, addicting, easy-to-play-the-next-episode-without-thinking show that one could picture dominating water cooler talk at the office, or fueling a Friday night binge marathon. And Hamm’s role, not only as the charismatic lead character, but one of the show’s executive producers, plays a big part in making it that.
Hamm in Your Friends and Neighbors.
Men’s Health talked with the actor about the show, how he relates to the character and that lifestyle, and just how much he keeps in touch with his Mad Men and Top Gun: Maverick costars.
MEN’S HEALTH: We’ve got to start things off on a personal note: How are you holding up after the Super Bowl?
JON HAMM: [Laughs] I’m fine. It was a bit of a shock to a lot of people, but so it goes. Philly was the better team that day, for sure. They put a stamp on it.
MH: I’m a Jets fan. So at this point, I would give an arm and a leg just to lose in a Super Bowl.
JH: [Laughs] Oh, I’m sorry.
MH: You’ve done so much comedy and drama in your career, and in Your Friends and Neighbors you get to a bit of both. Is there one you like doing more than the other?
JH: Obviously, we wanted to have a particular tone to the show—we didn’t want it to just be a straight serious drama; We wanted there to be moments of levity and humor in it. I don’t really have a favourite; I like doing things that I feel like I would seek out and watch, and this is certainly one of those things. I pick things by, basically, does it interest me, and would it interest me as an audience member? I’m glad Apple enjoyed it so much that they’ve already picked it up for a second season.
MH: As the star and as a producer, did you take influence from anything in particular?
JH: One of the big decisions we had to make was who was going to direct the first couple episodes of the show. We picked Craig Gillespie, who I’d worked with on Million Dollar Arm, but who people know from I, Tonya and Cruella. Craig was a really instrumental part of establishing the tone that you talk about, both visually and from the sensibility of finding the right balance of drama and humor, and made it look like a million dollars.
Hamm in Mad Men, which aired between 2007 and 2015.
MH: Was there anything specific you had to do to get into the right headspace for Your Friends and Neighbors?
JH: I wouldn’t say it was anything super specific, but it is a challenge. Shooting a season of a show, especially a show like this, where it’s really, really centered on my character—much more so even than Mad Men, where there’s ancillary characters who are coming in and out who have storylines and all these other things happening. This is much more focused on my character, Coop. So, it was draining; It was a challenge. It’s much harder to do this in my mid 50s than it was in my 30s, for sure.
MH: You’ve definitely kept busy, but this is your first true star vehicle TV show since Mad Men. What have you learned in the time since?
JH: What I really took away from the whole Mad Men experience was just how intense and all-consuming being the lead of an hour-long show really is. It’s a pretty intense job, and when you’re dealing with the emotional resonance and the physical demands of being on set 12 hours a day, 5 days a week, for four-and–a-half months, it’s a challenge. It’s much more difficult in your 50s than it is in your 30s, but you learn how to pace yourself.
My wife, and our dog—we had to move our whole family from Los Angeles to New York. That’s different when you’re living in a rented space, and all the other things that come with that. All of it is just about taking it one day at a time, and making sure you don’t forget that this is the thing that you love to do, and that you’re really enjoying it.
MH: One thing about the show that’s very fun for us movie fans: Coop wears a Criterion hat in some key scenes. How did that happen?
JH: That’s [creator] Jonathan Tropper. He decided when he was writing the script that Coop was a movie fan, and I think it makes sense. He very often finds himself in front of a screen watching movies. I think that’s his happy place, especially as his life is disintegrating around him; He goes back to the things that make him happy. It’s not just classic movies—it’s Bloodsport with Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Commando. I can certainly identify with that, movies are my happy place too.
MH: Speaking of movies, your character is referred to as George Clooney at one point; George Clooney, who of course famously played a thief in the Ocean’s trilogy and Out of Sight, both with Steven Soderbergh, a director you’ve worked with on No Sudden Move. Was that connection international?
JH: Good catch. I think that’s very much on purpose, yes indeed.
Hamm in Your Friends and Neighbors.
George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven (2001).
MH: What was different about this show that made you want to hop on as the star and as a producer?
JH: I really liked the story. I liked the set-up. I liked Jonathan—I really was pleased at how he was able to create something that felt familiar and very new at the same time. That, to me, was… again, I look at things both from the perspective of being in it, and being somebody wondering ‘Would I want to watch this?’ And this checked both of those boxes for me.
If I look at the last four or five things I’ve been in, whether it’s been Landman or Fargo or Morning Show or Fletch, all of those things have that in common: Would I want to be in it, and would I want to watch it? I’ve been lucky enough to be able to tick both of those boxes on the projects I’ve picked, and I’ve been on a pretty good run, so I’m enjoying it.
MH: One of the first scenes of the show finds your character contemplating life, longevity, and mortality just from a chance encounter with a woman in a bar. Do you think that’s just where guys’ minds go after they hit, say, 30?
JH: I don’t know if it’s 30, but I think certainly once you hit your 40s and 50s, you really start thinking, ‘OK, am I on the back nine? Am I closer to the end than the beginning?’ I think that’s a thing people think about. It may not inform everybody’s decisions in a real way, but I certainly think it’s something people think about, especially when they have children, and they have people that depend on them. What’s it going to be like when I’m gone? Have I prepared the environment here well enough?
MH: Is there one single way that you relate to Coop more than any other?
JH: Look, I’m not a high finance guy. I don’t live on a country club. I don’t have any of that real addiction to stuff. I do think that both Coop and I have come to the realization that stuff is both ephemeral and doesn’t matter as much as people think that it does. I’ve got enough stuff in my life to probably last three lifetimes. I don’t really define myself by it, or really set out to make my life about the acquisition of more stuff.
Hamm with Danny Ramirez, Monica Barbaro, Jennifer Connelly, Tom Cruise, Miles Teller, and Joseph Kosinski at the Mexico premiere of Top Gun: Maverick.
MH: Last thing before we go. I want to ask about Mad Men and Top Gun: Maverick; Do you have any kind of group chat or other kind of way to keep in touch with those casts to this day?
JH: Yeah! Mad Men ended ten years ago this year, and we had a fairly active chat for a long time. It’s been dormant for some time, I think we’ve all moved on to greener pastures at some point. But it still exists in the world, and the same for Top Gun. It still exists; When Monica [Barbarbo] got nominated for an Academy Award and did such wonderful work in A Complete Unknown [in which she played Joan Baez], we all chimed in and said ‘Congratulations.’
It’s a nice thing to have. Those things are obviously, like, remembering the time you had on these projects, not only to be able to look back on the finished project—I still watch Top Gun if I see it on TV or cable, or if it’s on the airplane, I’ll definitely watch it. But it’s also nice to have the memories of the friends you make. Group chats are a really fun way to remind yourself of those things.
MH: One way that 2025 isn’t too bad.
JH: Exactly!
This interview has been edited for content and clarity.
This article originally appeared on Men’s Health US.
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