It's hard to think that anyone else besides Mad Men, but he wasn't always the surefire frontrunner for the now-iconic role. Thomas Jane nearly got the part before Hamm did, and Peter Hermann was also being considered for the role. Even John Slattery, who thankfully ended up playing the memorable role of Roger Sterling, auditioned for the part.
Jon Hamm endured a notoriously difficult audition process, in no small part due to his lack of name recognition. Series creator Matthew Weiner loved him immediately, praising his charisma and air of intelligence. On the other hand, the executives over at AMC needed more evidence to convince them that the then-35-year-old pretty boy had the acting chops to pull off a leading performance. The actor participated in script readings multiple times and met with the producers at the swanky Hotel Gansevoort in New York, a nerve-racking ordeal that sounds like a Mad Men set up itself, in order to prove that he had the talent.
The year he tried out for Mad Men, Hamm had auditioned for seven different television pilots and had gotten rejected every time. Weiner, however, was attracted to his relative obscurity because it meant that audiences couldn't connect the character to any previous roles. The showrunner stated that the trend at the time was to shy away from casting traditionally handsome men in lead parts, instead often portraying them as villains. Ironically, it was the previous show Weiner wrote for, encouraged this type of casting. Of course, Hamm's good looks ended up complimenting Don's toxic masculine behavior.
Jon Hamm Almost Didn't Play Don Draper
According to Jon Hamm when he was speaking on Law and Order: SVU star Mariska Hargitay, and was shocked to discover that Weiner wanted to cast the former.
Hamm, fortunately, won her over when Wayne personally interacted with him in New York. By the time John Slattery auditioned for the role of Don Draper, Jon Hamm had solidified his position. However, Weiner and the casting department still asked Slattery to read for the character, then offered him the part of the older, brash Roger Sterling, who co-runs the ad agency Don works at. Slattery claims that he was initially sour about not getting the lead role, but after becoming close friends with Jon Hamm and exploring the character of Sterling, he wholeheartedly embraced his part on Mad Men.