Jon Hamm

a brand new episode of Off the Beat. As always, I'm your host, Brian baum Gartner. Today you just heard. I am so excited to be interviewing another icon of the TV industry. You know him, you love him, We all know him, the amazed John Ham. I mean, what can I say about John. He's hilarious, he's handsome, and he has truly had one of the most amazing careers

in the game. You may know John from his iconic portrayal of the always dapper Don Draper, or maybe as Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne in The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I mean, he's done at all from teaching our very own Ellie Kemper in high school. That's right. There are people out there who got to have John Ham as a high school drama teacher to his latest pursuit of playing the nineteen eighties detective of his fourteen year old dreams. You know, I don't know why I'm building him up.

You know who he is. I know you love him, as do I. So let's bring him on, shall we? The incredible John hamb I love it, Bubble and Quaker bubble and Quaker cookie at every moment left over from the natty people. What's up? John? There he is. How are you? I'm good man, How are you? I am so well. It's so good to see you. It's been a long time. It has been a minute. It's been a minute, I think the last time. Maybe not the last time, but uh, that I heard from you. You

were you were looking through my house when I wasn't home. Yes, that that should be explained. I think we can just leave it at that. Actually all right, No, I heard. I got home. I was like, oh, John Hann was there your house today? And I was like, what did he go through my underwear drawer? Why was he? Why was he in there? T? D. T. B D. I see you have the is that the Burrows High School shirt? There? Yes, indeed John Burrows High School. St. Louis, Missouri, home and

alma mater of myself and one Ellie kemper As. You know. That's right, so you I want to talk about that in a second. But you grew up in St. Louis right, born and raised St. Louis, Missouri. Yes, indeed, do you go back often? I wouldn't say often, especially obviously during the pandemic it was difficult, but you know, a couple of times a year for various functions and whatnots and my sister's both have grown up kids, so now they're starting to have kids. So it's that kind of thing

or an occasion or a function. But other than that, it's I just don't get back that much. Yeah, but you still root for the sports teams, I know the Blues, Yes, that very much. I do. I've root for the teams. I'm excited for baseball season. This is all happening. So it's all happening. Um, you didn't really get into acting until college, is that right? I mean, yeah, I wasn't a child actor or anything like that, but I did you played Winnie the Pooh. I did, Yes, I did,

thank you very much. It was excellent. That was in first grade. And then I did do some acting throughout high school, but it was more of a college thing. I got a scholarship to do it, which was very cool. I didn't have a lot of money, so that was a nice little way to augment my income or pay my bills. So yeah, So that that was at MISSOO. That was sort of the beginning of me being accepted as someone who could believably put a wig on and make people laugh or not. Is that what you like

to do? Make people laugh when you started? Or did it not matter? I don't know. It kind of didn't matter. I really liked saying other people's words. I really liked plays, and I really liked reading things out loud, and I enjoyed the idea of interpreting people's words. And then like, when it became sort of a profession, I was like, WHOA, if you actually put some effort into this, this can be even more fun. Right. You went back to John Burrows High School and you taught drama for a while.

As you mentioned, you taught Ellie Kemper in school. Now when you went back there to teach a drama, Did you think that was it for you? Or was that just a step. I was twenty four years old, so I was pretty young still, and I was like, Okay, this is like a job and a job that I'm excited to do and I really wanted to do for various reasons, most of which I had to do with

the school that I went to. As you can probably tell some some wearing a T shirt and sitting in a chair that has the crest on it is pretty important to me in my life. And I was like, I really understood that this school gave a lot to me, right therefore, I wanted to be able to give something back to it, which I have done in the course of my career. As it is taken off, I've done

a lot more. But at that point I was like, well, what I can really do is actually go back and teach and try to download some of my vastly accrued knowledge at twenty four to to these this next generation. And you know, I had some really great students. Ellie

was one of them. You know, Ellie even back when she was fifteen years old and she was like a ninth grader, was just a hard worker and I real not competitive, but like achievement oriented spirit like, so I was like, oh, you're gonna be just fine, like you're you're a good kid, and you get it. And and she really liked acting and it was really fun for her. You could tell all of my kids that I had, except for the eighth graders, were all like they all

chose to be in this class. So it was kind of like, well, if you didn't want to be here, you wouldn't have picked it. So and it was in brov and it was acting, it was scene study, and it was all that stuff. And I did it for a year and it was really fulfilling and fun and I very much enjoyed it. But no, it was It was not a thing that I was like, Oh, this is be the rest of my life. I'm gonna get married and have kids and I'm gonna settle in St. Louis and live five minutes from where I grew up.

And I was like, I think I want to try something else, right, I have to go back on that for a second. You remember Ellie like you remember her as a student. Yeah, and her sister carry too. Yeah, of course I remember all my kids like for for the most part, but yeah, no, I definitely remember Ellie. She was She was just a really hard working, diligent, a cheap and oriented student who was very It was great.

Like honestly, as a teacher, you're like, those are the kids that you only want, right So when did you reconnect with her? Do you remember seeing her again? Or yes, I do. She show it to college. That was five years later, and I was out here in l A. I had probably been working. I'm not sure if I was on Madman by that point, but she, I remember emailed me and said, I'm coming out. I went to this and I did this, and I've been doing this UCB and blah blah blah, and I'm coming out and

I'm doing my one person show at UCB Theater. And I was like, oh my god, that's awesome. That's like five minutes away from my house. I'd love to come see it. That sounds great. And so I did. And I came backstage after the show and I was like, you were really great. That was awesome, you know it was there were twenty people in the audience, and She's like, Oh,

I'm so excited. I got it. I have an audition tomorrow for the Office, and I said, well, I think you're going to get it because you are perfect for that show and this is like a perfect showcase for you. And the rest is history. That is crazy. Suffice to say, I do remember when I saw her. You do remember her? I I assume you were asked. I don't know if by her. How did it come to be that, Well, you played her captor then on Kemi Schmid years later.

I did you keep in touch before then? Well? Yeah, actually we had done Bridesmaids together, right, so we had that sort of meeting again. And I remember being on the red carpet for that movie and looking over at Ellie and she caught my eye and I was like, this is so weird, and we both kind of laughed, and I think we gave each other hug and I was just like, I can't believe you. I'm like standing next to you on a red carpet at a major

motion picture that we're both in. That's going to be a huge hit we didn't know at the time, but going to be sort of a cultural touch point for for many people. But it was nice, to say the least.

But yes, I had kept up with her, and obviously because I knew a lot of you guys on the Office too, So like people maybe don't know this, but like you know, the the Awards Show kind of swirl, you know, had us in it for quite a few years, us being Madman, and then also the Office and Dirty Rock, and so we would see each other at a couple of occasions every every year for quite a few years. So I would run into her at those things, as well as you and b J and Mindy and Tina

and Robert Carlock and all the thirty Rock gang. And and that's when I did the stretch I did on Dirty Rock after thirty Rock. And that's when Tina and Robert said, Hey, we're kicking around this idea. We really wanted to develop this thing for Ellie. Would you take a look at it? Would you consider it? And I was like, I don't know if I really want to be a go back right into serious television. They're like, no, no, you're in like one episode a year. I was like, oh, okay,

that's first of all, how dare you. Second of all, let's stay let's take a look at it. And they were like, well, let's let us come pitch it. To you, and I was like, okay. At that stage of it, it was a pilot and the pilot was called Tooken t o O kay N. I was like, okay, what what and they're like, okay, you play a guy who kidnapped for women and kept them in an underground bunker.

And it was literally like, let me finish. But it's funny, It's like so I was like, I mean, I trust you guys, but I mean really like a lot of weird stuff had just come out about people, and I was like, I don't know, man, I'm not sure I find the funny in this. But then I read it and I was like, oh, it's really funny, and it's about the only way you get away with that is by playing this person as a complete and utter buffoon and totally out of the realm of believability. And it

was really fun. I mean, playing that guy was so silly and so dumb, but so fun because it was so like Robert Carlock, who wrote the majority of the Reverend stuff, just got that dumb energy of like it's it's not even toxic masculinity, it's just stupid masculinity. It was really fun to do, and yeah, I mean it went for forever and we got to do that really fun Netflix choose your own adventure kind of thing. Yeah,

it was really great. I was really really pleased with how it grew and how it ended and how it developed Titus character and Carol Kane's character. Like it was just like the best of shows, like your show. It became like watching a family grow, and like we watched the characters kind of go through their own stuff and you watch them figure their own stuff out, and by the end of it there better. Yeah, well said, so

let's go back your teaching at John Burrows. When did you make the decision that you needed to go to l A. I remember they had asked me to consider doing another year at school, um, and I was like, well, I don't know, guys, Like I think I wanna try to see what can happen with this. And I just remember having this thought of like, well, I'm getting kind of old. Yeah, I'm like getting a little long in the tooth, which, by the way, nowadays is actually true.

Like if you're not famous by fourteen on TikTok, give it up, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Don't please don't, And also don't get famous on TikTok, but I was. I just had a sense of like, well, if not now, when And I could definitely see inertia settling in if I didn't at least try. And I remember one of my acting teachers a long time ago, even actually the guy went and taught underneath at Burrows, said like, what's the worst thing that can happen? If you try? You fail,

so then fail again and fail better. Yeah, okay, that

seems like a pretty good advice. And it is, like it really is, like I really think, especially nowadays, and especially how uncertain everything seems with the pandemic, with the complete devastation of social norms as it seems over the last few years, I think the idea of failing is so terrifying to people, and and in reality you're kind of like, and then you know what will happen, Like you'll fail at something and then my son is gonna rise and you're gonna get up and go get another

job or not, or you know you're gonna make it work. It's an climbing mout everest every time. Sometimes it's just walking up a hill and you just have to put one ft in front of another and then all of a sudden you look back and you're like, look, how far up come? This is actually impressive. I'm impressed with myself, right, it is. You deserve credit, though, what do they say A bird in a hand? Like leaving something, Especially when you're in this business where it's so hard to get work,

it's difficult to leave. I mean you were twenty four, I mean commed, I was working in the theater and I was like, yeah, I want to go to l A. I want to go to l OH but I have this job. It's really hard to say no, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go to l A. And leaving opportunities that you have is it's difficult. Well, I think there are there are inflection points, right obviously, and we all have them. Some of them happen earlier

for us and some of them happened later. And I think the idea is in the best case scenario, and I think you can probably attest to this as well, having the ability to identify them. Right, So when you get an opportunity, you say, Okay, this is an opportunity, like I really want to take advantage of this, and I remember God, I mean When I came out here, I auditioned for everything and I got nothing. I was an extra in the pilot of the TV show The Practice,

you know, I was up for Deep Impact. I didn't get it. Jon Favreau got it. And it was just one of those things of like coming so close to something and not getting it's coming so close to something and not getting it. And that happened over and over and over and over again. And I had success, and I had a couple of things that I got, and it was kind of climbing up that hill of loose gravel and sliding down and climbing back up and sliding down.

But then I remember when Madman came around. I was like, Oh, this is like an inflection point. This is an actual thing that I could really do and really do well. And I think that I need to identify, like I have to like call it out and I have to be I have to get this. I just have to.

I'm not a big believer in the secret or you know, manifesting your destiny or whatever that, but I was very much aware that I really did in a way that I hadn't identified any of these other opportunities or options that I really thought this was right for me, that I was going to be really good in this and

it was going to be really important. And so yeah, that was when I was thirty five, so like there was ten years between me coming out here and me getting the thing that identified me to the greater population. It is what it is, and you have to go well, I have to identify those inflection points when they happen, and and then take advantage when they when they present themselves. I understand or I've heard that, like the Office mad Men was specifically looking for unknown actors. Is that right?

Did you know that going in? I didn't know that going in, because I remember going to quite a few auditions and seeing everybody signing in and recognizing quite a few of the names on the signing sheet, and I remember hearing that they had offered it to this person and that person. Matthew has said, and I believe him that he when he met me, knew that I was

the right person. And then had I think, had figured that, yes, this would be a much better way for an audience to perceive this show if they did not have a celebrity or somebody recognizable in the title role, like if it was Rob Low. Just to name a person as Don Draper, it would have been the Robb Blow Show. And that's that's exactly what he didn't want. He wanted it to be this show starring these people. And I think that that delivered well. Certainly not being colored with

a specific personality. I mean it allows you to experience the character and more authentically well. And also, you know, it's one of the it's one of those things like we just don't really have that. I mean, we're starting to have it more. We didn't have it, I should say back then. We have it a lot more now when you see a show on Hulu or Netflix or we have so many more of those now because the selection and the choices are limitless at this point. You know,

it's not thirty one flavors. It's like thirty one thousand flavors. So you can really dial into your specific palette. If I can extend that metaphor. It's a strange world. And I think Matt and I think Mike and Greg also kind of got it. It was like, we can't have super recognizable people, we can't stunt cast this thing. It's not gonna work. And if the market is amenable to letting people discover this in their own time, and we

were definitely beneficiaries of that. Yeah, you said you read the role and you knew that it was for you. Why what was it about the role that you saw synonymous with yourself or knew that you were the perfect person. That's a good question. I just I just felt it. It's like Don was a kind of mysterious person. He was a smart person, but not you know, traditionally, you know, he didn't go to the all the right schools and the right things. He just kind of was he kind

of knew people. That was Don's superpower was that he knew people right. He could read people. I said this about my father a lot, Like my dad could talk to anybody and he could listen to them. That's what I mean by talk to them. He wouldn't monologue at them.

He would like engage in a conversation with them. And I always felt I had that gift, so that what I identified with Don was that he was able to without judgment, talked to kings and poppers in the same breath, and that is a very good quality to have when you're selling people things. Was there anything physical, anything physically that you did characteristics of the character, did you Did you see him in that way at all? I always had a thing with Don that Don's suit, you know,

his his look was a suit of armor. So he put this suit of armor on to go to battle every day, right, And so when he didn't have that on, if you watched the show, realized happened quite a few times. But there was almost like a vulnerability that he exhibited when he didn't have it on, and it rarely showed when he had the armor on. And so, and it was part of the hairstyle and everything, like he would put his drag on to really become this character because

that's what he was playing. He was playing a character, was playing Don Draper. That's people don't know that. I knew that, but Matt told me that whole back story before we shot the frame of film. So I knew that this guy was living a double life when we started it, and it was important for me to play that but not play it obviously physically. That's what I did consciously, and h I'm sure there were some subconscious

things that bled into it too. It's I mean, it's it's almost encapsulated in the logo, right, there is such a strength in casualness. That is a horrible way to say, and I can't think of what I'm trying to say, but there's such a passive strength with him. He has

so much power but is holding back. It's that classic like the more you yell, the more you scream, the louder you are, you actually don't have power, but when you pull back, and I felt like you physicalize that so well, and yeah, maybe it is when the suit was on it I didn't really think about that before, but that's really interesting. It's it's very true, Like you know, it was. Matt and I would have conversations about this all the time, and it was kind of like when

you're pitching of anything. If you're a writer pitching a project, if you're an ad man pitching a concept, there is a want or a desire to sort of like be a showman and like do the things and do the stuff and and sometimes that's warranted and sometimes it's not.

And so for Don I think his he realized at a certain point if they've come into the show room, like and this goes back to his days as a first salesman when he meets Roger Stirling, if they've come into the show room, they're ready to buy, you're already halfway there. Your job is to convince them of the other half. And the way he was written, and Matt had such a good handle on this guy and writing him this way. But he was very easy about getting

you the other of the way there. Come take my hand and gonna walk you all the way across from You're gonna sit down and you're gonna have this thing, and then you're gonna say yes. It was seductive, It was like smart, it was emotional, it was you know the people point to the carousel speeches that but that's that's what it was like. It was all of those things.

It was and and it was effective, and um, I think those are good qualities, you know, salesman, not so much in a husband or But that was what I was just about to ask you, what for you those moments that there were obstacles for Don where things were more difficult, What was the most difficult aspect of that for you to play? Well, you know, I wouldn't say it was difficult. It was fun. And that's the fun

part of acting. Right. If it was just Don Draper selling ads and winning all the time, it would be a really boring show, right, And so that part of it was the attractive part of it to me. Like, my favorite part of the pilot episode is when he comes home and you're like, this guy's got life and kids, Like, oh shit, right, everything I thought of the first forty eight minutes of this show is wrong. I just love that reveal, and and I just thought it was really elegant.

I thought it was really great from a dramatics jet and devastating all of the things that you want from from a drama and you're like, well, now I'm ready for episode two. I'm ready for episode two through a hundred, and we were so fortunate to get a chance to do another indy two episodes of it. Yeah, well, it's really interesting your show, along with Tony Soprano and the Sopranos and Brian Cranston and Breaking Bad, that shows where the lead character was the hero but had deep flaws

and obstacles to overcome. And I think that those three shows specifically are so brilliant and so great because you do find yourself rooting for and against these people. Well, so right, it was the the era of the quote unquote difficult man, I did not make that phrase up, but I think my friend Allan's up and we all did. But like it is true, there was this anti hero kind of sensibility of the early aughts that was very evident,

and not only the three you mentioned. I think you could probably point to the wire as well as as well as a couple other things that was really evident. You know the difference I think with our shows that unlike Soprannos and Breaking Bad, like those shows had the benefit of the stakes being life and death. So Tony Soprano was a gangster, he could get whacked any minute. Born grandson was a drug dealer, he could get whacked any minute. Cops in the wire and then drug dealers

in the wire. Death was lurking around the corner, and every minute our show was not. It was like maybe that he's going to disappoint his wife again, or maybe it's gonna he's not going to get the big account. So the stakes were much more real and much more human, and I think a lot more identifiable to more people. I don't know what it's like to think, oh, I hope someone's that outside wanting to shoot me, But I do know what it's like to be disappointed at work.

And I think that was kind of the magic that our show actually had, which was making that those steaks high enough to be dramatic. Yeah. Well, it's interesting that Matthew, you know, came from The Sopranos trying to find potentially a more relatable or universal subject of home versus work versus you know, having that conflict exists, that's maybe more universal for people. For sure. Matt had written the script for mad Men before he got the job on Sopranos.

That's in fact, David Chase read the script for mad Men and said I want to meet this guy, and that hired him on Sprantos. And so if you if you actually go back and like watch Matt's episodes of The Sopranos, you'll see the shared DNA, things about dreams and things about signs and things about what does what do things really mean? And what's the deeper meaning and things and it's very philosophical and it's really smart, and

it's really emotional, and it's really effective as storytelling. And that's you know, the Sopranos was David's milieu, right he grew up in New Jersey. He kind of grew up

around these guys. This was his Bailey Wick and you know, Mac grew up in Baltimore and then Beverly Hills and like had a very different life and so very much understood the overbearing mom and the issues that comes with that from the sopranos point of view, and then understood kind of the dynamics of marriage and what comes from that and from our standpoint, and understood being a salesman like he was a comedy writer and and had to sell shows like he got it. So those are the

things that you bring to your work. If you're a writer, those are the things you bring to your work. If you're actor, like, you bring your experience and you hope it relates or resonates in some way. Yeah, that that's that's what it's all about. Ultimately, it is finding your own experience and trying to translate it on a universal stage. You do episodes seven eight years, much like The Office. You guys, Uh, most of the cast is unknown before

that point. Do you think that that made it more special for you when it was over or more difficult to say goodbye? I mean, I think I don't care how famous or not famous or known or unknown you are. I think if you spend the better part of the decade with anybody, it's hard to say goodbye. I mean, I think that's that's the end of a lifetime for a lot of people. You know, that's the end, certainly,

the end of a long chapter of a lifetime. I guarantee you had virtually the same experience that I did. But it's hard to say goodbye to this part, right right. You're never gonna say goodbye to those people forever. So I still, you know, hear from them, keep up with them, their careers, their lives, their children, and their families in some way. It's obviously not in the way that it was, but it's certainly in its own significant way. That's just what it is. You know, it's just too long a

time to just ignore. I think, maybe more specifically what I meant, you know, it's in a situation I think where you have people who are established, it's never the same as the first time, and it feels like like Madmen, like the Office, it was sort of the first time, big show, big experience, big success for everybody, basically, So that's that's more I think. Yeah, I think that's true.

I mean, it's it's it's certainly different than being on a movie where you you know, you're you're together intensely for two months or whatever it is, and then your

peace out and you're onto the next one. Or it's different, you know, Like I was on a show on the Lifetime network for three years and almost seventy episodes of television and me and Taraji Henson and Bonnie Badelia and Tracy Needham and Lisa Vidal and Nancy McKeon, and I still know them, but I'm not like connected with them in any real way because it was like, yeah, that was a job. So yeah, it's like it's certainly a strange thing and a specific thing, but it's also you're right.

I think you're You're very right in the sense of like, yeah, that first real sense of being successful and something is indelible. Yeah, you became so synonymous with Don Draper. Has it been hard for you or have you actively tried to do different work or do you not think about that? Yeah? I mean I remember the show started in two thousand We shot the pilot in two thousand four, was on the year by two thousand five, two thousand and six,

we were picked up. So around two thousand seven eight nine, that's when I like hosted SNL and was working on thirty Rock. Was like, that's when I started to get a lot of offers for jobs that were like, Hey, this is a guy who's kind of a brooding guy who smokes a lot of cigarettes and he wears a hat, and like I was like, yeah, I kind of I played that guy in my day job. Like, let's do something different, And that's when I started working a lot more.

I had known a lot of the folks in the comedy community for years, but that's when I started working with them and they were inviting me to come play in that sandbox. And that's when I did things like Bridesmaids and Dirty Rock and San l and what have you. So it was it was definitely a a decision to

pivot off. Let's not bang on the same piano key for forever here, right, I asked, because it was always so pleasurable to see you in something totally different, to see you show up in Bride'smaids or thirty Rock or um, you know, eventually Kimmy Schmidt, and it's it was so fun and it felt like at least it must have been a choice either for yourself just to be to have fun or you know, to want to pivot away from that role that defined a network, that defined a

historic show. Yeah, I mean it was really nice to have credibility in both kind of lanes. You know, you usually asked weirdly enough as actors, you're and I think now more than ever, you're like pickole a do the one thing that you do and just just do that unless you're you know, blessed. But I was really grateful that, you know, Lord Michael's first of all asked me to host s and now, and then off of that, Tina said, is that guy? Is that guy funny? Is a kind

of a dud? And I was deemed to be funny and then asked to go play with the cool kids over Dirty Rock, and you know it just came got to meet Amy Poehler, off of that, got to meet Maya Rudolph, got to meet Kristin Wigg, got to meet Jason sadik Has, got to meet Bill Hayter. The people that I ended up working with and doing really fun projects with, And it was like a good feeling. I'll say, it's awesome. Confess Fletch coming up bringing back Chevy Chase

fletch from the eighties. Was that scary to you? Are you just excited? For sure? You're a big fan of it? Yes, huge, huge seminal motion picture for me and Chevy's performance and Chevy's career. He was so specific in his comedy and is remains and I think is so particularly good in that film, so us it was terrifying to actually say, Okay, we're gonna do it, but not like he did it. I'm not gonna like do a Chevy Chase impression because we already have that version. It's like doing a cover

version of a song. Like if you're going to cover the Beatles, you better do it differently than the Beatles. Otherwise it's just gonna pale in comparison. So do it differently. And so that's what we set out to do and we did. It's much more akin to the books, which I was a big fan of. Like I saw the film in when I was fourteen years old. I thought it was the funniest thing I ever saw, and then I realized, oh my god, there's ten more books. Like I'm so excited I get to read all these books.

And he goes to Rio and he does this thing, and he does he gets in so many more capers. It's so fun. And I was like, oh, man, like, I hope they make all these movies. You know, this was in the days of the early Star Wars days, when you knew that there were nine more of these, you had to wait four decades for them to come out. We decided that we were like, Okay, look, we're gonna

do this, but we're gonna do it our way. We're gonna make it a lot more like the books, and if people like it, we understand that there's a whole two generations of people that probably they can rediscover it if they want. And we made a really funny detective movie that obviously shares the same character name and the same original source material to the film, but very little else with it. But we're hoping that it's um fun and funny, and we got to make it. We got

to make the movie we wanted to make. And Greg Mottola, who I've worked with on several projects, I just love his sensibility and his the way he works, and he co wrote the script, and I was just like, I want to make ten more of these. So if you want to keep doing them. You'll be in the next one if you want, Brian. It's like it's like, you know, we just get to play in our our fun little sandbox and hopefully they'll let us do more. I am

so excited to see it. For sure. I was a big fan, and obviously you know I'm a big fan of yours. So I can't wait to see your take on it. When is it? When? When is it out there? We don't know. We're it's it's an independent film, believe it or not, like we made it like an indie and you know, we have to find distribution and all that stuff, which we're on track to do, but we just haven't done it yet. So we'll see, we'll see that. The good news is there's an awful lot of places

that that distribute movies. Now, yes, um top Gun, Um top Gun. However, it will be in theaters. I think that'll be everywhere. Right, Was that fun to do? I mean that's that's too kind of iconic movies that you're you're got a hand in here, right back to back. Yeah, yeah, two big eighties franchises that I've got to do, Like would tell people, like if I could tell my fourteen year old self that I was going to be in a Fletch movie and a Top Gun movie. My fourteen

year old selves head would have fallen off. Yeah. Yeah, I have lot of like high school friends and people from my youth that are like so jazzed for Top Gun. It's hard for me to even process it. But yeah, that'll be in in theaters Memorial Day weekend, whenever that is worldwide. You'll be able to find it on a screen somewhere near you. It's an excellent film. I'm very

proud of it. I was very pleased to work with Tom, very very pleased to be asked to be a part of that franchise Universe world however you want to say it like walking around a set that has American flags and fighter jets and aircraft carriers and I was like, are you kidding me? You know, happy, happy to be here, You're in awesome Alright, Last question, I've got to ask you. When you are named as you normally are to some Sexiest Man Alive list, how does that make you feel

like proud? If you can put the video aspect of this call on the air, you'll know that that's a very subjective term. Uh, maybe it's the light or the angle. But I've been looking at myself for the better part of the last hour and I don't think I'm on any of those lists. Um sure, obviously it's nice for people to say nice things about you. I think it all comes with a pretty healthy grain of salt, and I think you know what I do too. I think it's just do you take that with a grain of salt? John.

Until I make it on the list, it means nothing. Well, having gone through to bring it all back home, having gone through your underwroad drawer, I realize that you're on my list. Perfect. John. Thank you so much. You know what a huge fan I am of yours and basically everything you do. There might have been that one thing back in them late night, the division, you can say it. Yeah, I didn't like that at all, But thank you so much for taking the time and talking to me. It's

my pleasure. Brand It's always nice to talk to you, and my best to you and yours, and we'll talk at a later day. Thanks John. Well you heard it here first everybody, John Ham. Thanks. I am the sexiest man alive, but at least I already knew that. John Thank you for stopping by. It is always a pleasure, my friend. And thank you, yes you out there listening,

for tuning in. Don't forget to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and why don't you go give us a follow on Instagram at Off the Beat, I'll be seeing you next week with another incredible guest. This time I will be talking to a person who is both a talented actress and he classically trained ballerina. I wonder that could be. But until then, go out there and have a fan freaking tastic week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside

our executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Emily Carr, and Hannah Harris. Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak performed by my great friend Creed Bratton, and the episode was mixed by seth Olandski