Jon Hamm has divulged a reason Ben Affleck was “unhappy” to play the lead role in Gone Girl.
During a recent interview, Hamm addressed the rumours that he was supposed to star in David Fincher’s 2014 psychological thriller.
Adapted from the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, Gone Girl starred Affleck as Nick Dunne, a man who becomes under suspicion when his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) disappears.
There have long been rumours that Hamm was meant to play Affleck’s role, with the Mad Men star confirming this during a recent appearance on Watch What Happens Live.
“Yeah, I was down to the very end of that,” Hamm, 52, revealed. However, he was unable to star in David Fincher’s film as he still had commitments to TV series Mad Men, which was in its sixth season when Hamm would have been needed for Gone Girl.
Hamm played Mad Men’s lead character, Don Draper, for a total of seven seasons from 2007 to 2015.
“It was meant to be me, but we had to film the continuing adventures of Mr Draper,” he said.
As a consequence, Affleck won the role – although he was left feeling grumpy when he realised the costume he’d be required to wear while playing Nick, who hailed from St Louis, Missouri.
“Poor Ben, a Boston guy, had to wear a Cardinals hat,” Hamm said, adding: “He was not very happy about it.”
Affleck wouldn’t have had reason to be unhappy for too long – Gone Girl was a huge hit, grossing $369.3m (£288m) at the global box office from $61m (£47.6m).
He starred in the film alongside Pike, Tyler Perry, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens and Emily Ratajkowski.
Hamm’s post-Mad Men film credits include Baby Driver (2017), Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), Richard Jewell (2019) and Top Gun: Maverick (2022).
In March, the actor reflected on working in the porn industry in the late 1990s.
When asked by Dana Carvey and David Spade on their Fly on the Wall podcast if he was a “fluffer” – the person on set employed to keep the male performer’s penis erect – he said: “There were certainly no genitals touched. I was in the art department, believe it or not.”
Hamm’s most recent film, detective comedy Confess, Fletch, is available to stream in the UK on Paramount+.
