Interview

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On the television series Mad Men, Jon Hamm plays mercurial advertising executive Don Draper, he of the dashing good looks, battle-weary wit, idyllic family, shadowy past, and slow-brewing maelstrom of inner existential tumult. Set in the post-Eisenhower, pre-Camelot netherworld of the early 1960s-when the coming revolutions of feminism, civil rights, and sexual liberation had yet to bloom-the show casts Draper as an embodiment of the midcentury American Dream. He looks the way movie stars used to look, smokes the way people used to smoke, contemplates life the way men used to contemplate it, and feels like nothing else on TV.

When Mad Men premiered last summer, Draper immediately registered as indelible-iconic even-which is good news for the 37-year-old, Missouri-born Hamm, a veteran of nearly a decade's worth of still-born pilots, three-episode arcs, and nameless walk-on parts. Now, as the series kicks off its highly anticipated second season this month, questions abound regarding Draper's future as well as the future of America itself. The only certainties are that some cigarettes will be smoked, some office sex will be had, some Scotch will be drunk, and some changing social mores will be unpeeled.

Mad Men, of course, is on its way to making Hamm a star-and to say he's nothing like Don Draper is an exercise in gross understatement. Paul Rudd, who has known Hamm for more than two decades, recently met up with the actor. They went to the mall.

This interview takes place at the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles.

PAUL RUDD: You and I have known each other for about 20 years.

JON HAMM: That's a lot of hairstyles.

PR: What would you say was your most treasured hairstyle during that time?

JH: I had a pretty serious mullet back in the day. We both had long hair for a while. You had the Michael Hutchence.

PR: I was greatly inspired by INXS. Now, you were a St. Louis Cardinals fan growing up, obviously, because you're from St. Louis.

JH: You were living in Kansas City.