Jon Hamm Reflects on Fake Cigarettes and 'Onion Water Vodka' During ‘Mad Men’
Jon Hamm recently wrapped up what turned out to be a massive hit in Your Friends & Neighbors on AppleTV+, with the debut season finale having aired on May 30.
With a significant number of successful starring roles in both movies and television shows under his belt over the past 15 years or so, what initially firmly put Hamm on the map was his legendary role as Don Draper in Mad Men.
Beginning in 2007, Mad Men ran for seven seasons and the 54-year-old Hamm's performance left enough of a lasting mark that the name "Don Draper" is still often used as a point of reference in pop culture, particularly anything involving the world of advertising.
On Saturday, Hamm and Mad Men co-star John Slattery, who played Roger Sterling, reunited in Austin for the ATX TV Festival to discuss the legacy of the show 10 years removed from the series finale.
What managed to stick out the most, however, was Hamm discussing his great distaste for all of those fake cigarettes he had to smoke and the endless array of "onion water" vodka martinis he and Slattery consumed throughout the show's 92-episode run.
"Yeah, I think somebody did a count, and in the pilot alone, I smoke 75 cigarettes … They are fake cigarettes, but that just means that there's no nicotine in them. It doesn't mean you're not burning something."
“They were like, 'We're gonna smoke real cigarettes. We really want to, feel it and do it,’" Hamm continued. "And I was like, 'let me know how that goes.' And within three days, they were yellow and sallow. This is a terrible idea."
A huge part of the chaos of smoking anything, let alone actual cigarettes, was due to the New York City-based Mad Men being shot in Los Angeles, leaving almost all of the filming to be done indoors.
"We didn’t go outside, which was awesome and not awesome," Hamm said. "The whole thing, the whole stage is full of fake cigarette smoke."
Oh, and about all of those vodka martinis during Draper and Sterling's famously extended lunches—apparently in order to properly replicate such a thing without using alcohol, they used a glass of water with an onion in it.
"Oh, the breath was lovely," Hamm sarcastically reflected.
Slattery chimed in with a stellar quote that really drove home the point of the pain:
"Pop another pearl onion in your glass of water, and then smoke 26 more fake cigarettes and it’s 9:30 in the morning!” he said.
All jokes aside, Hamm went on to express his appreciation for how Mad Men impacted his career, and seemingly continues to do so to this day.
"Obviously it's a tremendous honor, and it's a wonderful thing to have worked on and contribute to something that has lasted this long ... So that's pretty awesome. I mean, to be sitting here at this incredible festival talking about something you did a decade ago, and have this many people show up just to hear it is tremendous."
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