Jon Hamm and his Mad Men co-star John Slattery have revealed what was in the martinis they consumed on-screen while filming the hit AMC show.
Mad Men, which won 16 Emmys, starred Hamm as protagonist Don Draper, the Creative Director of a New York advertising firm at the heart of the series. Slattery played Draper’s colleague, Roger Sterling. Together, the two — and their cast members — slugged dozens of martinis and puffed hundreds of cigarettes throughout the show’s seven seasons.
Speaking to moderator Noah Hawley at Austin’s ATX TV Festival Saturday, the two lifted the lid on what was in their glasses.
Slattery said that an onion pearl was added to water in the glasses to create the illusion of a real martini for viewers at home.
“Oh, the breath was lovely,” Hamm recalled.
“Pop another pearl onion in your glass of water, and then smoke 26 more fake cigarettes and it’s 9:30 in the morning!” Slattery said.
The duo also recalled smoking dozens of fake cigarettes, which were really rose petals and marshmallows.
“I think somebody did a count, and in the pilot alone, I smoke 75 cigarettes,” Hamm said. “They are fake cigarettes, but that just means that there’s no nicotine in them. It doesn’t mean you’re not burning something.”
He then went on to recall how younger members of the Mad Men cast tried to smoke real cigarettes while shooting the series.
“They were like, ‘We’re gonna smoke real cigarettes. We really want to, feel it and do it,’” Hamm recalled. “And I was like, ‘let me know how that goes.’ And within three days, they were yellow and sallow. This is a terrible idea.”
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Hamm then reminisced about their time working on the show, which ran on AMC for eight years. The first episode aired in July 2007 and the series finale was in May 2015.
“I started that when I was 35 years old. Went right through to the age of 45,” Hamm said. He went on to call it a “transitional moment in life and time,” and noted that “so much of working on the show was stepping into a time capsule for real.”
“Obviously it’s a tremendous honor, and it’s a wonderful thing to have worked on and contribute to something that has lasted this long,” Hamm continued. “I’m glad I’m still alive, basically because of the amount of cigarettes I smoked. But the amount of work we put into it feels commensurate with the amount of love we’re getting back, which is a nice feeling as well. So that’s pretty awesome.
“I mean, to be sitting here at this incredible festival talking about something you did a decade ago, and have this many people show up just to hear it is tremendous.”
