Jon Hamm Say He Was Actually Supposed To Star In Ben Affleck’s Best Movie Role
Jon Hamm was supposed to star in Gone Girl, but the role went to Ben Affleck after Hamm had to drop out.
Jon Hamm announced recently that he was initially chosen to portray the husband in Gone Girl, a role that eventually went to Ben Affleck. As Deadline reports, Hamm went on the web show Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen last Tuesday and claimed that he had the starring role in the David Fincher thriller but had to give it up due to his commitments on Mad Men.
“It was meant to be me, but we had to film the continuing adventures of Mr. Draper,” Hamm said, referring to the role he played from 2007 to 2015.
What made giving up the role an especially bitter pill for Jon Hamm to swallow was Gone Girl‘s setting of St. Louis, Missouri—the actors home town. Poor Ben, a Boston guy had to wear a Cardinals hat,” said Hamm referring to both Ben Affleck and St. Louis’s Baseball team, the Cardinals. Hamm went on to say that Affleck was not very happy about having to rep a sports team other than his beloved Boston Red Sox.
The actor was reluctant to specify just why he wasn’t able to star in Gone Girl—after all, plenty of television actors take movie roles in between seasons or even during filming if the circumstances are unique—leaving the details up for speculation.
One rumor puts the blame solely on Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner for Jon Hamm losing out on the role. Weiner allegedly wouldn’t let Hamm out of his contract in order for the actor to film the movie.
Another rumor was that Gone Girl‘s filming schedule and Mad Men’s simply didn’t line up in a way that Jon Hamm could do both. Whatever the reason, Jon Hamm is reportedly still salty about missing a role that he was counting on to set up his future career post-Mad Men. Sadly, Jon’s theory that Gone Girl may have been essential to his plan of becoming a leading man on the big screen may have some merit.
Let’s be clear, Jon Hamm has had some great roles post-Mad Men. The Falcon on Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Reverand Richard Wayne Gary Wayne, and the voice of Tony Stark/Iron Man on Hulu‘s Ill-fated M.O.D.O.K. are just a few of the roles Hamm has killed in recent years.
However, most of the parts Hamm has done since Mad Men ended have one thing in common. They’re all supporting in nature.
There’s an old adage about “no small parts, only small actors.” However there’s also a phrase “leading man looks,” and Jon Hamm’s got ’em. That’s not to say that veteran character actors like Stephen Root or Steve Buscemi are “ugly.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that. But it would be disingenuous to ignore that certain actors, Ryan Gosling, Margot Robbie, Jennifer Lawrence, etc., are as close to objectively good-looking as you can get, and Jon Hamm is definitely in that group. All we’re saying is if we looked like Jon Hamm, we’d be pretty upset about not getting cast in lead roles too.
Last year Jon Hamm did manage to snag a coveted lead role in Confess, Fletch, a sequel of sorts to Chevy Chase’s earlier Fletch movies. Unfortunately, the movie performed abysmally at the box office. The movie brought in a measly $656,613 on a $20 million dollar budget, possibly stalling Jon Hamm’s career as a lead actor indefinitely.
Would starring in Gone Girl have changed Jon Hamm’s career trajectory in any significant way? Who’s to say, but if there’s a chance it might have kept him from appearing in The Jesus Rolls, it’s worth dwelling on.
