There are certain casting decisions that we just couldn't imagine an alternative for. An example of this would be Frodo's Elijah Wood or Gnadalf's Sir Ian McKellan from The Lord of the Rings. Whenever you hear the names of those characters, you immediately think of those two actors. Well, the same is true for Don Draper from Mad Men. As soon as you hear or read that name, it's likely that your mind goes right to Jon Hamm... Even people who haven't seen the show before, like Andy Samberg, picture Jon as Don. Now, that's great casting.
Although Jon has moved onto other projects, he will forever be associated with this great character from Matthew Wiener AMC hit-show. And yet, Jon almost wasn't cast...
Matthew Weiner Had A Very Specific Vision For His Show
According to an interview by TV Guide, Jon Hamm almost wasn't cast as Don Draper in Mad Men. At the beginning of the casting process, the series creator and showrunner Matthew Weiner made it very clear to his creative team (and to AMC) that he had specific ideas of what type of actor he wanted to cast in each role. This included hiring a lot of fresh-faced actors with no baggage. And he wanted American actors. He didn't want to hire the 'hottest new' British star in an American role. He wanted it to feel authentic to the time period as much as possible.
"Traditional networks really want to be involved in every aspect of the casting process, and they have a lot of say over who you end up casting. On this, AMC trusted Matt's taste," casting director Kim Miscia said to TV Guide.
Many of the actors Matthew, Kim, and their team found had a particularly bad pilot season; a period of time where actors try out for network shows that are launching simultaneously.
"I was exhausted by pilot season. It was one of a million auditions, but there were a lot of actors in town talking about the [Mad Men] script, because it was so different," Christina Hendricks, who played Joan Holloway, explained. "We didn't have to do network tests and things like that, because we were [AMC's] first show, so they didn't have a precedent for that. Normally you have to go into a room with 20 executives all staring you down."
I many cases, Matthew hired his actors on the spot in the audition room. If he felt that the person was right for the role, he would go right for them. And, due to AMC's adoration for the Mad Men pilot script and Matthew's artistic vision, they let him do this. However, when it came to the leading role, things were a bit different.
AMC Didn't Like Jon Hamm As Don Draper
While the network executives at AMC wanted to give Matthew as much creative freedom as they could when it came to casting, they just weren't sure about Jon Hamm as Don Draper. After all, the man who Matthew wanted to lead this big show was virtually unknown as an actor. Still, Matthew was persistent and kept bringing Jon in to read for the role in order to convince the higher-ups.
"I auditioned about seven or eight times and I was just thinking, God, at this point, I've pretty much read every single scene in the pilot to somebody. What do I have to do?" Jon Hamm admitted of the casting process.
"We were like, 'Really? This is the guy you want?' Matt was telling us he just knew it in his gut and he could see it," Christina Wayne, the former SVP of scripted programming at AMC, said to TV Guide. "So I made the decision to fly Jon Hamm from L.A. to New York to meet with me in person. [AMC executives] Alan Taylor, Vlad and I took him for a drink, and it was immediately apparent in person that he would embody Don Draper."
"I'm doing my thing and trying to be friendly and nice and prove that I can be the lead of a television show," Jon said. "We get in the elevator to go downstairs and they're like, 'OK, that was a great meeting. Thanks very much.'"
Jon was left hanging. After all of this time and effort invested in trying to get this role, he still didn't know if he was cast or not.
"He was flying back the next day to L.A., and I was like, there's no way I'm making this guy suffer through like a six-hour plane flight back wondering whether he got this job," Christina said. "I just can't humanly do that to someone. So I whispered in his ear, 'Congratulations, you got the job.'"