Jon Hamm is ready to become a movie star
Thursday, October 22, 2015 at 11:35AM Here's Murtada with news on what's next for Jon Hamm post-Mad Men.
He finally won his much deserved Emmy and now that Mad Men is behind him, it seems Jon Hamm is set on becoming a movie star. This week came the announcement that he’s joining Ansel Elgort, Lily James and Jamie Foxx in Edgar Wright's next movie Baby Driver. He’s reportedly playing “a former Wall Street trader turned cop killer” ie. the big baddie.
Driver is one of a few upcoming Hamm movies. Already in the can is the comedy Keeping Up with the Joneses alongside Zach Galifianakis in which he plays a government spy hiding in the suburbs. Maintaining the espionage angle he’s set to play a US diplomat working with a CIA agent (Rosamund Pike) in 1970s Beirut in High Wire Act which was announced a couple of months ago but who knows if it’s still happening. He’s currently shooting Marjorie Prime in which he plays a holographic recreation of an ailing woman’s (Lois Smith) dead husband as he looked in his 30s.
An intriguing mix of movies, genres and lead/supporting parts. Perhaps chosen to compensate for the failure of his first foray into leading man territory with last year’s box office bomb Million Dollar Arm. He’s got the talent and he’s got the looks. Lines between TV and movie stardom are getting more blurred everyday with more actors and directors straddling both mediums. Still a bonafide movie star has much more clout than even the most successful TV star. Hamm seems to want that as he pointedly has chosen not to work in TV. Understandably, there’s nowhere to go on TV after the huge succes and endurance of an iconic part like Don Draper.
Do you think Hamm has what it takes to become a big crossover star a la George Clooney?
Reader Comments (12)
Maybe. He was pretty good in A Young Doctor's Notebook. But I really think he's a leading character actor who needs time to unveil his character's layers, so another well-written series in a year or so would be great for him. Timothy Olyphant did ok moving from Deadwood to Justified, and of course Bryan Cranston was more than fine going from Hal to Walter White. I think Hamm might be wrong to give up on TV, especially the way in which TV is consumed these days. But shedding Mad Men will be a long hard road. I don't even remember Clooney's character name from ER but no one can forget Don Draper.
Nice head shot, by the way. Yowsa.
He should try something risky instead of these projects. Moss is becoming a movuecstar because she has this auteur lust, what separates her instantly from the other Hollywood aspiring actress. Hamm is handsome as hell, but he's far from being the only handsone 40something in Hollywood. But he's a hell of an actor and that's what he should focus on instead of picking these villains and cops roles.
Pam - Omg yes I agree on that picture. Gorge, such a beautiful man. I'm bookmarking this page.
I have never seen Mad Men (please, put away your knives!), but I recently saw him in Friends with Kids and he was absolutely terrific.
...and I am ready to stare at him on the giant movie screen. That's how we grow 'em in St. Louis!
brookesboy you are in for a slow burning but very satisfying portrait of the 1960's.
Is it strange that I find him to be a little bland? I am curious to see where his movie choices take him though.
He does look like a classic Hollywood leading man.
At 44, Hamm better get a move on if he's to become a leading man in movies... Clooney was a decade younger when he began starring in movies post-ER...
Pam and Summer - glad you like the picture. Once it appeared in my search I could not not choose it. Does take the breath away.
He's also set to marry me. Can't believe you forgot to mention it.
Jon Hamm was iconic as Don Draper, but I too find him a little bland outside that (fantastic) series. He would be wise to mix it up and go big (or small), rather than somewhere in between. (For example, I thought he was pitch-perfect hilarious in Bridesmaids.)
Jon Hamm is just one "Shame" away from screen immortality. :-)