“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” seems like a strong metaphor for the friendship between actors Jon Hamm and Paul Rudd, a bond Hamm spoke to in a recent interview with The Howard Stern Show. Per Hamm, Rudd was the first person he knew with a “Hollywood career”—and was an essential asset to connecting Hamm with the contacts who helped his own acting work get some looks.
The duo first met in the Midwest before reconnecting in Los Angeles; Rudd made the big West Coast move first. Hamm says in their early years of friendship, Rudd had “long Michael Hutchence hair,” a Duran Duran jacket, and an ascendant acting career Hamm admired.
“It was like he was everything that you thought the cool guy from college looks like in 1988,” Hamm recalls. “He had just done Clueless, and he was going to go do Romeo + Juliet, so like, he was on his way.”
Even though Rudd was tapping at the windows of the upper Hollywood echelons back then, Hamm says he was never anything less than supportive when an exceedingly green Hamm made the move out to L.A. Hamm says when he first arrived, he promised not to “blow up” Rudd’s spot, but did ask him for just “one phone number” to help Hamm get off the ground. Rudd immediately connected him with his former manager.
“I ended up getting an agent out of that,” Hamm shares, “and I ended up going on a million auditions and not getting any of them.”
Although Stern jokes that were he in Rudd’s stead he might not be as supportive to possible competition, Hamm says Rudd’s just “always been that way.”
“Throughout my career and life, you know,” Hamm muses. “We’ve been friends going on 30 years now.” If the friendship looks a bit one-sided from this angle, a later story from Hamm about picking Rudd up at one of his ‘90s DJ sets adjusts the skew. A friend in need is a friend indeed, but so is a friend who’s supportive enough to watch you express your truth on the turntables.