The actor also reflected on why he believes he’s able to seamlessly transition between dramas and comedies during a recent live Q&A
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NEED TO KNOW
- Jon Hamm picked the most memorable scene of his career
- The actor, 55, shared his thoughts during a live Q&A with Josh Horowitz at 92NY in New York City on March 29
- The Emmy winner also reflected on why he believes he’s been able to seamlessly transition between dramas and comedies
Jon Hamm revealed the most memorable scene he’s ever shot.
Hamm, 55, looked back on his career during a live Q&A for Apple TV’s Your Friends & Neighbors with Happy Sad Confused host Josh Horowitz at 92NY in New York City on March 29. During the conversation, the actor was asked which TV or film set moment he’ll never forget.
“Well, there's quite a few from Mad Men that I could go with, but I think it's more recent than that,” Hamm replied, before revealing that it was a scene from 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick.
Credit: Paramount Pictures
“I remember walking onto the set of Top Gun: Maverick, and there's a four-story American flag to my left, and Tom Cruise [is] walking toward me, in Maverick gear, with a giant smile,” he recalled. “And there's three F-18s in the deep background, and hundreds of naval aviators in the foreground, and he's clapping, and he's got his hands out ready for a hug, and he's like, ‘I'm so glad you're here.’ ”
The Morning Show actor continued, “And we had a conversation, and I said, ‘Is this bizarre for you? You were here in this exact space 35 years ago, dude, playing the same character.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it's pretty wild.’ And we shot it, and I was like, I was having kind of an out-of-body moment of, ‘I cannot believe [this] … Top Gun, to me, as a 14-year-old in St. Louis, Missouri, was more than a movie. It was a religion, I guess."
"I mean, I saw it with my friends a hundred times, and in the age before streaming, and everything immediately on demand with the press of a button,” the Emmy winner added. “You had to go out to go see these movies. And we did. It … defined cool for us. And so, to be a part of that, and be inside of that, and looking around at it, and then, for the movie to be so tremendous."
“I think, I'm still kind of blown away that I was in that movie,” Hamm said.
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At another point in the discussion, Hamm reflected on being able to seamlessly transition back and forth between dramatic and comedic projects throughout his career.
“It's a nice thing to have,” the former 30 Rock guest star said.
“The way I described it — or have described it in the past — is having credibility kind of on both sides of the aisle. So you're not forced to only play one note.”
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Credit: Jessica Miglio/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty
He added that he attributes part of his success in both genres to the changing nature of the industry.
“I came along [when] this whole business sort of shifted,” Hamm said. “When I got into this, like, you weren't allowed to be a guest star on other shows. It wasn't like a thing that you were able to do, because they wanted to kind of own you and keep you in your lane.”
“That all went out the window in the early 2000s,” he continued. “I kept my options open and I said yes to a lot of silly, goofy things.”
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