The Mad-ness continues: Jon Hamm suits up again for Winnipeg-shot series American Hostage

Jon Hamm in American Hostage. Frank Ockenfels 3/MGM+/Sony Pictures Television

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It has been 11 years since the landmark TV series Mad Men finished its seven-season run, from 2007 to 2015.

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Since that time, actor Jon Hamm has put some distance between himself and the role of smooth-surfaced, internally roiling Madison Avenue ad man Don Draper. Hamm played a vicious bent lawman in the fifth season of Fargo, a bloodthirsty crook in Baby Driver, a stuffy vice-admiral with little patience for Tom Cruise’s shenanigans in Top Gun: Maverick, and assorted roles in an array of series such as Your Friends & Neighbors, Landman and The Morning Show.

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Yet with that multitude of characters, it’s hard not to think of Draper as you watch Hamm’s new eight-episode series American Hostage, premièring on Crave on Sept 20.

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In an adaptation of a true crime story from 1977, Hamm plays Fred Heckman, a popular, even revered Indianapolis radio host who inadvertently becomes a part of the story he is covering when he agrees to interview Tony Kiritsis (Giovanni Ribisi), an angry would-be entrepreneur who feels cheated by a local mortgage broker and takes a hostage from the firm in a bid to air his grievances publicly.
Though the period is a decade later than Mad Men, Draper and Heckman appear to be brothers under the skin, smart, capable, ambitious alphas, masters of their media fields, coping with dramatically changing times.

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One distinction between the men is that Draper spins the truth and Heckman honours it above all.

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Hamm, speaking about the show following its première at the Toronto International Film Festival, says the suit-and-tie, cigarettes, barbered similarities are outweighed by that disparity.

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“The difference, I think, with Don Draper is that he, as an advertising creative person is driving the narrative and driving the conversation, whereas Fred, being a journalist, is trying to be neutral, is trying to just report the facts.”

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“And the problem with the situation as it develops in American Hostage is that he is thrust into being a part of the story, and trying to navigate the difficulty of finding the line. Where is the line? The line keeps moving.”

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Jon Hamm in American Hostage. Credit: Steven Ackerman/MGM+/Sony Pictures Television

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The show, filmed in Winnipeg, was adapted by a podcast of the same name, which also featured Hamm as Heckman. If the story is near to Hamm’s heart — he also serves as an executive producer — it may be because it resonated with him personally, hearkening to a time when journalism had a clearer purpose and radio was a driving media force in the community.

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“I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, which is a very similar city to Indianapolis, especially in the ‘70s,” Hamm says. “There’s a lot of shared DNA. They’re both in the Midwest. They’re both relatively rural.

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“The main radio station in St. Louis was KMOX, which was a 50,000-watt clear channel,” Hamm recalls. “It was called the Voice of the Prairie because it broadcast from St. Louis all the way to the Rocky Mountains. You could get Cardinal games in 12 states. And so you could also get the news delivered right there. And so everybody listened to KMOX.”