Jon Hamm on His First Film Festival and How He Measures His Own Success

Jon Hamm is on a whirlwind press tour. The actor and his Top Gun: Maverick castmates started in San Diego, where they attended the film’s stateside premiere before flying to the Cannes Film Festival (then flew back out in less than a day). Next, they were off to London, all in pursuit of a grand return to movie theaters. This week, Hamm pivots to celebrating his Kafkaesque workplace satire Corner Office at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here, he opines about the film biz and post-pandemic recalibrations.

What do you remember about your first film festival?

I think my first time must have been for The Town, and it was a double whammy because we went from Venice to Toronto. Just like with Top Gun, it was a movie that people were really excited about. I remember being a young actor and thinking, “Maybe someday I’ll get to go to Sundance Film Festival.” It’s where all the cool, independent movies were coming out of in the ’90s, and I think Tribeca has picked up some of that momentum. I love premiering movies at festivals, because the audience is full of true film fanatics, and I love that it can be a springboard for movies that maybe don’t have the promotional infrastructure built in.

There are many ways to measure success beyond box office numbers; what metrics are most important to you?

I’ve had an experience recently where a lot of people are now seeing Beirut, a movie I made back in 2015 and 2016, for the first time because it’s on a streaming platform. It was a small movie that had a very limited release, so very few people saw it when it came out. That’s part of the problem of this golden age of content — we’re overloaded. But it feels good to have people telling me, even now, that they saw a movie and that they liked it.

What drew you to Corner Office?

I was drawn to its ambition — the movie takes a big swing, and right away I saw the potential for it to be very cool and weird.

The dark side of corporate office life seem to be in the zeitgeist.

Yes, the movie feels very Severance; we of course made this well before the show came out. I think there’s been a realignment of how we view work and office life. I was having a conversation the other night with friends — with the pandemic and the Trump presidency, people forgot how to behave and what it was like to actually be in community with each other, whether it’s going to the movies or being respectful in Starbucks. The connection we had, virtually and through social media, was quite fake. The movie digs into the idea of who you think you are versus what you’re presenting to the world.

Top Gun is being heralded as a return to movie theater normalcy — what are you most looking forward to within that return?

As old as I am, it’s hard for me to remember a time pre-Tom Cruise. So it’s really exciting to get to work on this movie. I don’t think the theatrical experience will ever go away, and it’s been a long time since we had a movie that was so clearly meant for the theater. Pushing the release date back and back was absolutely the correct decision. But I’ll also say that wherever Corner Office lands after Tribeca, it’ll likely be a streamer. There are so many accessible ways to watch independent films that we didn’t have before. I think of the success that Everything Everywhere All at Once has found — the Daniels [Kwan and Scheinert] are so talented — and it’s so fun to see movies become the little engine that could.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

5 MORE TRIBECA MUST-SEES
The cinematic soirée will showcase deep docs, quirky shorts and everything in between.

JERRY & MARGE GO LARGE

Director David Frankel brings you Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening hacking the lottery.

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Katie Holmes wrote, directed and stars in this tale of two strangers stuck in a vacay rental together.

AISHA

Letitia Wright fronts a haunting feature about a young asylum seeker stuck in Ireland’s refugee system.

LOUDMOUTH

This festival-closing documentary traces the life of civil rights activist Al Sharpton.

OUT OF ORDER

Nicolas Heller, aka Instagram’s New York Nico, helms a short about some eclectic city characters.

This story first appeared in the June 1 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.