Jon Hamm is giving fans a look behind the curtain of his new show.
During a recent interview on “Radio Andy,” the 55-year-old actor spoke about “Your Friends & Neighbors,” more specifically about whether he used a butt double when his backside was on-screen for “the first six and a half minutes” of a Season 2 episode.
“It’s my real butt, I think,” Hamm told the host.
When asked by hosts Andy Cohen and Jonah Hill, if he did anything to prepare for the scene, Hamm joked that he didn’t do much and said that he was relying on post-production to smooth any blemishes during the editing process.
Hamm’s role as Andrew Cooper in the hit Apple TV + show is by no means his first big gig in Hollywood, but there was a time after the actor first moved to Los Angeles when he struggled to find work.
“I wasn’t working but I was auditioning like a million auditions and I kept getting called back,” he said during an appearance on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger” in July 2025. “The idea of somebody saying like, ‘Oh, I like you. You might not be for this thing, but you know, there’s there’s going to be another thing.’ And so I had that kind of feedback from casting directors and producers and directors and people like that. And I was like, ‘Okay.'”
He went on to say that “you have to have a pretty thick skin to do anything in this business” and that while there is sometimes a “rhyme or reason” to how things go, other times “you just get blind lucky.”
Hamm spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about that period of time when he was struggling to book roles, saying he “just didn’t fit.”
“I was the guy who was 25 but looked 35. It’s like I fell between two barstools,” he said. “I mean, I didn’t look like I was in high school when I was in high school. I don’t know if it was losing my parents, but I looked older.”
He went on to explain that losing both of his parents at a younger age than most gives you “a different sensibility,” and “a different outlook or approach to life,” which makes you appear “older than your years.” Hamm’s mother died when he was about 10 and his father died when he was around 20 years old.
Hamm went on to land the lead role in the AMC series “Mad Men,” when he was 35, playing Don Draper for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015. The role earned him 12 Emmy Award nominations, including one win, as well as six Golden Globe nominations with two wins.
“My friends that have parents that are still married or still alive, and it’s not a judgment either way, it’s just different,” he explained. “It’s a different way of going through life, and I don’t really wear it on my sleeve, but obviously Matt picked up on that, and it worked for Don Draper, for sure. There was something haunted in Don.”
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He has since starred in a number of successful projects, including “Bridesmaids,” “Fargo,” “Landman” and others. When speaking about his success, Hamm has often called himself a late bloomer, telling AARP, “I’ve always been a half a generation behind all my friends in everything.”
Despite success coming later in his life, he told Graham Bensinger in the 2025 podcast appearance, “I only know one way of how I’ve gotten to where I’ve gotten.”
“I can’t imagine what it would be like, especially now in an always-on kind of always hyperconnected, always oversharing way, what it would be like to have to manage success and a career and everything at in my 20s,” he said. “I know I was not prepared for it. I look at these kids who are winning awards and being exceptional, and I think I could barely do my laundry when I was in my 20s. Like I just wasn’t equipped.”
Prior to moving to Los Angeles, Hamm spent 12 years working as a waiter in St. Louis, previously telling Wealthsimple that “working in a restaurant is a good life lesson for anybody.”
The actor explained that his friend “used to say no one should be able to work in Hollywood if they haven’t worked in a restaurant” adding that it can quickly teach someone “what a difference a little bit of kindness and common courtesy can make for people.”
“It’s important to know how to treat people, and to learn how to respond when someone you’re working with is having a bad day,” he said. “Understanding other people’s problems is the cornerstone of the service industry, and it’s essential as an actor. Or whatever field you’re in.”
He has found success in more ways than one. Following an episode of “Your Friends and Neighbors” in which his character can be seen letting loose in a club, the actor became a viral online meme.
Fans of the show took the clip, which features Hamm with an injured face closing his eyes and swaying to the music, and turned it into an online sensation, with captions such as “When life is falling apart but this song hits” and “Coping but make it aesthetic.”
“Now, people don’t realize I have several active injuries on my face. Where I’ve just been beaten up in the show, but I was having a moment in the club, and the first person to send me this meme was Brian Williams of all people,” he told Jimmy Fallon on an episode of “The Tonight Show.” “Who sent me a text and was like, ‘I think you should be aware of this.’”
Hamm, who has been known as “the internet’s boyfriend” since his days on “Mad Men,” married actress Anna Osceola, who is 17 years his junior, in June 2023.
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The two first met in 2015 on the set of “Mad Men,” but did not spark relationship rumors until 2020, ultimately making their red carpet debut in March 2022 at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party. The couple now work together on “Your Friends and Neighbors.”
“It was great to have my wife, Anna, come in and be a part of it,” Hamm told People. “It’s fun to go to work together. We get to bring the dog in as well sometimes, so that’s nice. We save money on dog sitting.”
