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Jon Hamm Talks to Yahoo! About ‘Friends With Kids’

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt
Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt

Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt have been linked romantically and professionally for over a decade. Hamm appeared briefly in the two features Westfeldt previously wrote and starred in — "Kissing Jessica Stein" and "Ira and Abby" — and this weekend he plays a major role in her directorial debut, "Friends With Kids."

"Friends With Kids" is an independent comedy about two longtime friends (Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who want to be parents but aren't ready to settle down. So they decide to have a child together without having a romantic relationship. Hamm plays a married guy in their circle of friends whose passionate relationship with his wife (Kristen Wiig) drastically cools once they have a child.

I spoke to Hamm on the phone from New York about the advantages of working with his partner, how this film reunited him with the stars of "Bridesmaids," his recent cameo appearance on "Saturday Night Live," and whether or not he will ever direct a movie.

Matt McDaniel: There's been a lot to talk about your relationship with Jennifer Westfeldt and how that led to the movie. But in a stressful environment like independent film shoot, does working with your partner subtract from that stress level or unintentionally add to it?

Jon Hamm: Well, I think [the relationship] obviously it informs it. This movie shoot was challenging for many, many reasons. But the best part of it was that we were both had each others' back, and that became the constant in a sea of variables. The constant was like, "Well, I got you. You got me. We're in good shape. Whatever else happens we know that." So that was kind of great, and I think it was way better than if we were just two people that were producing a movie together.

MM: So what were the biggest challenges?

JH: Honestly the biggest challenge was the weather and I know that's sounds like a dumb thing to say. But last year in New York was one of the worst winters New York had experience in like forty years. So we would wake up to three feet of snow and just be like, "Well, I guess we are not going to shoot the walk and talk outside today because we literally can't." Or we would wake up in the line producer would say, "Okay, so the camera truck is snowed in, and the lenses have frozen."

So it was literally stuff like that, and on an independent shoot where the idea of taking an insurance day is not in the discussion, [a film] that's been scheduled down to the minute because we only have certain actors for certain amounts of time. You just have to kind of roll it, and Jen was superior in her ability to pivot when needed and if we can do this thing, this scene and we will have call an audible and we will go do this scene, because they are the same set, we just need to switch things around and it was incredible to watch.

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MM: In the process of working the script and developing it, did you ever ask her, "Hey, maybe write me a nice guy?"

JH: The funny thing was she didn't write the part for me. But in various integrations of the scripts and table reads and workshops that we did, I read several other the parts. I almost played Kurt [the role played by Edward Burns] in this thing because we had a hard time finding somebody. But I love playing that character. I had a couple of great scenes with Adam [Scott], who's been a friend of mine for a long time. It was fun to get a chance to act opposite him. And I was excited actually to work with Kristen [Wiig] again. We thought that that was a good pairing. It was a good, interesting set of attitudes to set up again to each other that we really haven't seen before. So, no, it wasn't, "Write me a nice guy." Write me an interesting guy. That's what I want.

MM: So basically "Bridesmaids" was like the most financially successful casting session ever, right?

JH: [Laughs] Kind of, yeah. I mean, the funny thing about it, is if we wanted to make this movie now we couldn't, because we couldn't afford any of those people. We couldn't afford anybody, really. There will be no way. And we shot this well before "Bridesmaids" came out, but Jen and I had known Kristen for a while, and I'd known Maya a little bit, and I knew Chris O'Dowd very little, just from the brief interaction we had on the "Bridesmaids"' set. But I knew that they were all crazy talented, and they brought a tremendous amount of value to the project.

Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm
Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm

MM

: What I thought was interesting is that Kristen Wiig plays the least funny character in the movie, and I mean that as a compliment.

JH: No, I know, that was on purpose. We were very excited and she was excited, and that was kind of our pitch to her. We were just like, "Hey Wiig, why don't you do this thing that people either don't think you can do or don't think of you as." And it certainly wasn't payback, but it was a similar thing when they ask me to host "Saturday Night Live." When you think of the guy from "Mad Man" it's not like that's a no-brainer to host a sketch comedy show. But they trusted me in and I was able to come in and do it. And Jen and I both had a crazy amount of faith that Kristen can do it, because she can do anything and she is hyper-talented.

[Related: Kristen Wiig talks to Yahoo! about 'Bridesmaids' success]

MM: You just made a quick appearance on "Saturday Night Live" this past weekend.

JH: Yeah.

MM: For a cameo like that to happen, when did you get the call and how much time did you have to ready?

JH: I flew in Saturday at like 3:30 and went right to 30 Rock. And there were a couple of other things that they had me do that got cut at dress [rehearsal], and then we worked it out for the live show and it was nice. I mean, it's an honor to be asked, and I hadn't been back to 30 Rock in awhile. So it was fun to go back. It was good to see people who I consider to be my friends, like Bill Hader and Seth [Meyers] and people that I just like, and it is just nice. It's such an institution at this point. So the fact that you're asked to come play is awesome.

MM: And you talked about you're hosting again anytime soon?

JH: You know, it's a rare gig. They don't have a lot of opportunities, so my sort of pat answer is I'll host whenever they asked.

MM: You've works in the past with directors who are also acting -- Clint Eastwood and Ben Affleck to name a few. What are the challenges when someone's on both sides of the camera, and what are the advantages?

JH: The advantages are that the director is usually the person on the set who knows the most about the material. Who is intimately familiar with the script, and that was certainly the case with Jen on "Friends with Kids." And honestly Ben on "The Town," and in both cases those people also wrote script, or co-wrote, or rewrote the script. So it's nice to have a person that is intimately familiar with the script. And that's the most important thing you can ask for a director.

And as an actor usually what ends up happening is those people are so focused on everyone else that they are like, "Okay, I just do two takes on me and we will move on." So you want them to be like, "No, no, no. Take your time, we got your back." And obviously on a film like "The Town" which has a significantly higher budget and a studio -- they have things like playback and a little more time to run with it and shape it. On our movie, man, we were like, "Let's go, we got to go, we got to, we got to go." So it's tricky and it's inspiring to watch when you see people thrive and really do it successfully.

[Video: Jon Hamm's rollerblading days on 'Conan']

MM: Now I've heard that you have made your directorial debut recently. So is features something that you are looking forward to?

JH: Not at all. [Laughs]

MM: Not at all.

JH: Not at all. I do not want to direct movies. That is a whole other kettle of fish. Directing television is like driving a train, and your job is to not drive it off the tracks. But the tracks are laid, and you know where you are going, and just don't derailed it. Directing a movie is like building a train, which is a very hard thing to do. And my hat is off to the people that can do it, because, holy moly, that's a whole different thing.

Watch Maya Rudolph and Chris O'Dowd in an exclusive clip from 'Friends with Kids':

[Related: Find showtimes and tickets for this weekend's films]