Jon Hamm, who is best known for playing Don Draper in the cult television series, Mad Men , once related a strange story about being terrified by former president Donald Trump . While doing a cover story for The New York Times in 2017, Hamm recounted meeting Trump at a Saturday Night Live party in Midtown following an episode that the Republican leader hosted.
“He was with Bill O’Reilly,” Hamm said. “They’re both tall dudes. And I’m a tall dude. And they both do that tall-dude thing, which is try to intimidate you. And it doesn’t work on me. I’m like, ‘I’m as alpha as you. Let’s go. You’re not going to chest-bump me.’ It was a very weird night. It was the shortest I’ve ever stayed at an ‘S.N.L.’ after-party.”
Jake Gyllenhaal and Jon Hamm perform a scene from the 1935 book that predicted Donald Trump: “It Can’t Happen Here”, trying to alert people to vote and what voting wrong could do: pic.twitter.com/QpbDQK3win
— J. Gyllenhaal Updates (@badpostsjake) May 29, 2018
In October 2019, the Emmy winner recalled the incident once again while appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert . According to The Things , Hamm received boos from the audience when he mentioned being intimidated by the GOP nominee. “I had forgotten who the host was. That host became the 45th President of the United States,” he joked in response. “He was there, him and his buddy Bill O’Reilly,” he told Colbert, to which, the host replied, “A boquette of douche, that is.” The Top Gun Maverick actor argued that there were numerous “chest out moves.” Trump allegedly attempted to throw him off balance by shaking his hand. Considering that he is 6’2, Hamm laughed at the endeavor. “You’re not going to get me off my pins,” he said.
Colbert went on to share his own experience of Trump during the show. “Backstage, he’s just like some guy you might meet at a club . I mean ‘country club,’ not like disco. He’s very clubbish and he’s kind of innocuous in a way. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about him.” The late-night show host admitted, “I did once. I wouldn’t want to anymore. He was actually kind of disappointing. He played ‘the reasonable man.’ He’s always kinda in persona mode. Sometimes he plays, like, the ‘rallying populist’ and other times he plays the ‘reasonable man.”
Comedian and host, Seth Meyers too disparaged Trump both on and off the show when they worked together on Saturday Night Live . In an interview with Howard Stern, Meyers disclosed that Trump was resistant to suggestions that made fun of him. On the other hand, he was entirely content if the crowd responded well. “It was fascinating to be around him. He was everything you would think. He didn’t have any sense of humor, but if things worked, he liked them. Even then, it was all about how the audience responded. It is the same way he is with rallies now. He says build a wall because it worked.” Trump famously hosted SNL on April 3, 2004, and November 7, 2015.
