Jon Hamm on His Career, Chiefs Fandom & Viral Memedom

TL;DR

Jon Hamm discusses his unlikely acting career, lifelong football fandom rooted in St. Louis team losses, and his accidental viral meme moment.

Key Points

• 1.Hamm became a meme entirely by accident. He has zero social media presence and learned about the viral moment when Brian Williams texted him a link while he was filming in Winnipeg, Canada.
• 2.Hamm's Chiefs fandom stems from St. Louis football abandonment. The Cardinals left in 1989, the Rams moved back to LA and won a Super Bowl there, leaving him with no Missouri team except Kansas City.
• 3.His new show 'American Hostage' is based on a real 1977 Indianapolis event. A hostage taker strapped a gun to a bank manager's neck for 63 hours and demanded his favorite radio reporter tell his story — Hamm plays that reporter.
• 4.'Your Friends and Neighbors' Season 2 premieres April 3rd on Apple TV+. James Marsden joins as a shadowy new neighbor, and the season deals with the fallout of Hamm's character choosing crime over going straight.
• 5.Hamm moved to LA in 1995 with $150 total — $100 from his grandfather. He rollerbladed to auditions after his car was towed for $2,000 in unpaid parking tickets, showing up sweaty to commercial castings.
• 6.He chose acting over D3/Ivy League football, where he played middle linebacker and offensive line. The decision came down to not wanting the full commitment of college athletics over pursuing something he already received strong feedback on.
• 7.Hamm taught theater at his St. Louis high school for one year after graduating Mizzou in 1993. One of his students was Ellie Kemper, who later appeared with him in both Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Bridesmaids.
• 8.He has hosted SNL four times and appeared on the show roughly 15 more times. A favorite sketch involved Will Forte playing a registered sex offender trick-or-treating — a bit Hamm acknowledged would never air today.