Jon Hamm quotes: Mr. Don Draper’s worldviews and lessons.
“Struggle is part of the journey.”
“You have to have a hell of a lot of confidence in what you’re doing.”
“There ain’t none of us on the planet that are perfect. And I think that people recognize human frailties and foibles and f*ck-ups and identify with it, honestly. Superman is a cartoon character. He’s not a real person. And no one is without sin, without mistakes.”
“It’s such a capricious, strange existence, basing your life on the whims of others, and basing your ebbs and flows of confidence and lack of confidence on the fact that people either choose you or don’t.”
“The world keeps moving, the world keeps turning, and people get older, and young people become older and more important and cooler and interesting, and actually staying the same becomes a liability, especially in the advertising industry.”
“If you don’t like what is being said, then change the conversation.”
“Being an actor is actually pretty easy if you can memorize lines.”
“I played Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade. I was an early adopter of standing in front of people and looking like an idiot.”
“I got into acting because my teachers kept nudging me into it. The power a teacher has to influence someone is so great. I can’t think of a profession I have more respect for.”
“Acting is sort of an extension of childhood. You get to play all of these roles and have so much fun. Playing an athlete would be so cool. Or where you get to shoot guns, ride horses. I wouldn’t turn down any of that.”
“That’s the best part of being an actor, honestly. If you wanted to do the same thing over and over again, you should probably go work in a factory of some sort. The good part of what we do is to get the opportunity – if we’re lucky – to do different things.”
“It is nice when things end. That is what stories do – they end. It is hard to write endings and it is hard to come to the end of things, but I think when it is done right, it is a very satisfying way to appreciate something.”
“Time moves on. You can’t go back in time. Everything has a consequence, and the last episode of the last season is no exception.”
“I’ve always been a fan of advertising, I’ve always been a fan of television, I’ve loved commercials, I’ve loved all the jingles, I loved all the stuff.”
“I’ve gotten away with a lot in my life. The older you get the more you realize you’re not getting away with it, it’s taking its toll somewhere. So you try not to put yourself in those situations. Part of the mysterious process called growing up. Some people do that better than others.”
“I’m able to leave ‘Don Draper’ at work. I’m quite dissimilar from him in real life.”
“I don’t drink as much as Don Draper. I would be unconscious if I did. A three-martini lunch is fun in theory. And it’s fun to look cool while you’re staring out of windows, drinking scotch and smoking. But the reality is, if you have a three-martini lunch, you don’t get much done in the afternoon. And if you stare out the window and smoke too much, you get f*cking lung cancer.”
“Men ruled the roost and women played a subservient role in the 1960s. Working wives were a rarity, because their place was in the home, bringing up the kids. The women who did work were treated as second-class citizens because it was a male-dominated society. That was a fact of life then. But it wouldn’t be tolerated today, and that’s quite right in my book. People look back on those days through a thick veil of nostalgia, but life was hard if you were anything other than a rich, powerful, white male.”
“It’s definitely nerve-racking to be the center of attention. I’m not the kind of an actor that just craves attention 24/7 – but it’s part of the deal. You’re the leader on the set.”
“This will sound funny coming out of my mouth, but I like to play characters that have an intelligence. It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical intelligence or emotional intelligence.”
“What I do is not curing cancer or rocket science or lead mining – anything tremendously difficult or world-changing. I understand where I am in the cosmic order of things, and I’m okay with it.”
“I’m painfully aware of my surroundings at all times.”
“I have a life, and it only goes in one direction: forward.”
“I think having a private life that you only share with your nearest and dearest is important. Otherwise, who are you?”
“People care enough to write blogs and reviews and things, which is nice.”
“We know that inevitably the millennials will get old and tired again, and then there will be the bilennials or trilennials, or whatever the next generation is, and we’re all going to end up on our lawn, shaking our fists in a bathrobe, yelling at the moon.”
“We live in a world where to admit anything negative about yourself is seen as a weakness, when it’s actually a strength. It’s not a weak move to say, ‘I need help.’ In the long run, it’s way better, because you have to fix it.”
“[On therapy] It gives you another perspective on something that you can’t quite figure out. And my therapist was able to really reorient my kind of way of thinking and she put me on a medication that changed my brain chemistry enough to where, ‘Okay, I’m feeling a little better. I can get up and go to work, I can get up and go to school. I can do my work on time. I can self-motivate again.’ Sometimes that’s what you need.”
“Medical attention is medical attention, whether it’s for your elbow or for your teeth or for your brain. And it’s important.”
“I like to laugh and have a good time rather than brood and be sullen.”
“But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”
“For most people, the authentic things are relationships, friends, and family.”
“The great thing about getting older is living life.”
“Losing both parents at a young age gave me a sense that you can’t really control life – so you’d better live it while it’s here. I stopped believing in a storybook existence a long time ago. All you can do is push in a direction and see what comes of it.”
“Whether it’s Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated.”
