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Actor tells Tavis how his role in a hit series has changed his life off the set. (2:43)
 

Full Interview. (10:32)
 

Tavis: When we first met Jon Hamm about a year ago, he was just beginning his role on a little show called "Mad Men" on an unlikely network, AMC. Now one year later, "Mad Men" is arguably the most talked-about drama on television. "TV Guide" says maybe the best show on television. Jon Hamm won a Golden Globe earlier this year and is considered the Emmy front runner for outstanding lead actor in a drama series. Not a bad year for this guy. The show airs Sunday nights at 10:00 on AMC. Here now a scene from "Mad Men."

[Clip]

Tavis: I like that line, "standing out, not fitting in."

Jon Hamm: (Laughter) yes.

Tavis: Kind of reminds me of a show called "Mad Men."

Hamm: A little bit. I have to say, we owe all of our success to you from last season, so thank you very much.

Tavis: (Laughter) I'll take that.

Hamm: You're the early adopter, you're the early adopter.

Tavis: I'm about to ask, do I get any credit for putting this show on the map?

Hamm: All credit, all credit.

Tavis: Get out of here. Just teasing. It is a great show. What do you make, though, of this success in year one?

Hamm: Well, you said it. It's standing out, not fitting in, and I think that our show is not like many other shows on the air. In fact, I don't think it's really like any other shows on the air. If it has any sort of antecedent, it's "The Sopranos." Not mistakenly, we got a lot of our crew and our creators from there. A lot of our directors have come from there and it's a very similar story to that style.

So it's a show that takes a little while to get used to, but then once you get into it, it's a really deep and fully realized world that I think a lot of people are really finding attractive and liking to spend time there.

Tavis: For lack of a better phrase, what do you make of the fact, though, that it has found success even though, or maybe even because of, it's a period piece?

Hamm: Yeah. I mean, I think there are two ways to kind of look at it. You know, it being set forty, almost fifty, years ago, I think there is a certain amount of the audience that watches it because they lived it and they really find it fascinating to kind of look back at that time or they have a very close connection to it, their father or their husband or whatever. They have a very close connection to it.

But I think there's another segment of people who really enjoy this sort of vicarious thrill of being back in that time. In the same sense that, if you look at kind of the audience for whether it's "Seinfeld" or "Sex in the City," these are shows that were hits across America, but they were about a very specific part of New York City.

Now everybody's not a New Yorker, but everybody that kind of watched "Sex in the City" thought that they were, you know, sort of living vicariously through one of those girls' lives or Jerry Seinfeld and his friends' lives or whatever it is. I think that that's kind of part of what our attraction is as well.

Tavis: What do you make of the fact that here again is a show that's found success in a world where we have five hundred million channels to choose from and it becomes a hit on AMC?

Hamm: Well, I think, you know, AMC set out to do this. They set out to change their brand. They were a network that ran old movies. It turns out there are a lot of networks that run old movies, so they wanted to be a network that made quality television programs and they set out to do that, and how do you do that?

Well, you go get somebody that has a track record of writing interesting stuff, maybe has an idea for a show, and you give them creative freedom. It's what they've done on HBO basically. You find people that have something to say and you let them say it.

There are a lot of talk shows out there. The reason that people pay attention to yours is because you have a point of view and people find it interesting. Otherwise, it's just noise. If you're just trying to pander to whoever you think you're trying to chase, that kind of elusive what's hot or whatever it is, it's just noise and you'll never rise above it, but I think that's what separates ours from that.

Tavis: Two questions about you specifically. Which one do I want to ask first? This one. How would you describe how this one season has changed your life off the set?

Hamm: Well, I get my phone calls returned a lot quicker (laughter).

Tavis: (Laughter) And a better table at restaurants, I assume.

Hamm: Yeah. I mean, it's changed sort of your standing in the industry and that's perception, which is great because I'm still the same person I was a year ago. I haven't physically or -

Tavis: - your socks are better than the pair you had on last year.

Hamm: I definitely have excellent socks.

Tavis: Your socks are very nice, yeah.

Hamm: But apart from my hosiery, the same person (laughter). But, no, it's just perception. This is a city and an industry that deals in how you perceived. Are you a commodity that is investment worthy? Are you a known quantity in some sense of that? So that has shifted, but personally and emotionally and socially and everything else, it's all the same. It's good.

Tavis: That's very good. That's the personal question. Now the professional question. I would assume that it's not that your phone calls are getting returned faster. There's a lot more stuff being thrown at you.

So in the context of trying to be, you know, on point with the character you play, of course, on "Mad Men," but trying to make decisions about all this other stuff that's out there and how it fits in and what makes sense and what doesn't, professionally how do you go about this period in your life where your stuff is really starting to take off?

Hamm: Well, ideally, you have a lot of people in your life that are helping you make those decisions. I mean, nobody goes it alone, no one does. Whether that's your wife or your agent or your priest or whatever it is, everybody needs somebody to help them through whatever their life is. I have a lot of people that I trust and that help me make decisions like that.

But I think the worst thing you can do is to sort of start getting grabby and think like, "Well, it's all gonna go away, so I need to do everything I can at once." Again, all of a sudden, you're over-exposed or you're exhausted.

Tavis: This town is littered with folk who've done that, though.

Hamm: Absolutely, and it doesn't last very long. You get burned out or whatever. I get tired enough working on the show. The show takes up a lot of energy for me. I work long hours and I work a lot of days and that's part of the program. That's just what it is. So it's nice to be able to take time off and, if something else comes off, great. But if it doesn't fit in my schedule or feel like something I want to do, then I don't have to do it, so it's good.

Tavis: Give me two choices that you have made over the last year outside of the work, I mean, professional choices, and why you made them, how you thought they fit in.

Hamm: Well, I'll give you the two things I did on hiatus. First of all, we had a writers' strike that was looming, so there were all of these movies that were getting rushed into production. "Oh, my God, we got to get it in before the strike or we're never gonna make it," so they're desperately writing script or rewriting the script or, you know, tearing the script apart and trying to see what they could film before the strike and after the strike. So there were huge $100 million dollar franchises and big, big movies and things like that that they're pushing and pushing and pushing in production.

I ended up doing a tiny, tiny, tiny movie that shot in Los Angeles that was just an interesting story. It was such a low-budget that I think it wasn't even covered under the writers' strike rules, so it got a waiver or something. Then I was incredibly fortunate to be offered a part in the opposite of that which was "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the remake, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates and Cal Chandler.

Tavis: That's the best they could do (laughter)?

Hamm: I know. They could only do two Academy Award winners and the Golden Globe winner. It literally sort of fell in my lap. I don't know if somebody fell out or what happened, but it was right there. To get an opportunity to work with people like that, I was like, "Absolutely." So there's two things at the opposite end of the spectrum that have to fit in to a sensibility of what I feel like I want to do and something where you feel like, well, you still have to have time to live a life, so it worked out.

Tavis: Where your character is concerned, I know that actors can never give away too much of what's happening in the second season or any season, for that matter, but where your character is concerned, how do you feel - yeah, that's what I want to ask - how do you feel about how the writers have treated your character?

Hamm: Matt writes television kind of differently than most people. Most people write stories that kind of go like this every episode and Matt writes kind of a season and it just happens to be split up into thirteen parts. It happened last year where he built this whole thing up and, the last three episodes, bang, bang, bang, all the payoffs happened. We're right now shooting Episode 11, so the last three episodes are coming up. I'm shooting them right now, so I know what's happening.

Tavis: (Laughter) And you're not gonna tell me.

Hamm: It's bang, bang - I'm not gonna tell anybody because it would ruin it, but all the dominoes are starting to fall and it is just as impactful as it was last year. It is incredibly exciting to work on. It's incredibly out of left field, a lot of the things. You think of all one way and, all of a sudden, we're over here and you're like, "Wait a minute. I thought. . . really?" It's just been tremendously fun to work on. The writers have been amazing this year.

Tavis: Just between you and me, I gave you some advice the last time I saw you because fashion, as you know, is cyclical. I told you to steal some of those clothes last season. I mean, did you get anything?

Hamm: (Laughter) I'm telling you, I owe all of my success to you. I will not back down on that statement.

Tavis: I told him last year, whoever does wardrobe for this show ought to be -

Hamm: - Janie Bryan.

Tavis: Janie, you're doing a great job. The wardrobe on this thing is amazing. It's a great show and I'm glad that Jon Hamm did not get so big that he could not come back a year later and see us.

Hamm: Absolutely.

Tavis: So, Jon, congratulations, man.

Hamm: Let's make it a yearly, man, I'm telling you.

Tavis: Come on back. I'll be here (laughter).

Hamm: It's just keeps going up every time I'm with you.

Tavis: I'll be here, knock on wood. All right. "Mad Men" on AMC, as if you didn't know.