Jon Hamm and John Slattery reunite for ‘Mad Men’ panel: “A tremendous honour”

Mad Men stars Jon Hamm and John Slattery have reunited for a panel on the show, calling the series a “tremendous honour” to be a part of.

The actors portrayed Don Draper and Roger Sterling, respectively, on the AMC drama, which originally ran between 2007 and 2015 and follows advertising executives in the 1960s – principally Hamm’s creative director Draper.

The two actors appeared together over the weekend at the ATX TV Festival in Austin, where they spoke about the show’s legacy, as well as the number of fake cigarettes they smoked on camera.

“I think somebody did a count, and in the pilot alone, I spoke 75 cigarettes… They are fake cigarettes, but that just means that there’s no nicotine in them,” Hamm recalled (via Variety). “It doesn’t mean you’re not burning something.”

He also revealed that some of the younger co-stars were keen to smoke real cigarettes as they wanted to “feel it and do it”, Hamm adding: “I was like, ‘let me know how that goes.’ And within three days, they were yellow and sallow. This is a terrible idea.”

The actor went on to share how the series marked a “transitional” time in his life, noting he was working on Mad Men between the ages of 35 and 45.

“Our real lives happen, relationships started and ended, and people had babies, got married and got divorced, and all this crazy shit happened in the real world,” he said. “It almost seemed displaced from that in a lot, in a weird way, because so much of working on the show was stepping into a time capsule for real.”

He recalled the “picture perfect” set, before adding: “Obviously it’s a tremendous honour, and it’s a wonderful thing to have worked on and contribute to something that has lasted this long. 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.”

Slattery added that it “felt like a parallel life”, elaborating: “There were about six months a year we would do this, and then we would go away. For a couple of years there we were pretty sure we were going to do it again.”

Draper and Sterling may be off the clock, but nostalgia never goes out of style Jon Hamm and John Slattery joined the @ATXFestival crowd for a sleek, stylish stroll down memory lane, toasting to 10 years since that iconic finale!

: Kevin Garner pic.twitter.com/CQ4xlqUG0f

— Paramount Theatre (@ParamountAustin) June 1, 2025

“And to be in the hands of those writers and those designers and those other actors, you had this incredibly intimate relationship with these people that was not your real life. But was just as real and just as demanding and complicated,” he added. “Yeah, it was all fake, and we went home at the end of the day, but it was such a gift. I think, to pretty much a person, we clocked that right away.”

Elsewhere, last year Mad Men star Kiernan Shipka – who played Don and Betty Draper’s daughter Sally – revealed that on-screen parents Hamm and January Jones were very protective of her.

“They were so protective over me and my kind of innocence and not exposing me to stuff that was sensitive or more adult,” she told the Dinner’s On Me podcast. “I always knew what I was reacting to. Like, I always knew what I was walking in on. I just didn’t have to see it over and over again.

“I think at a certain point, I was like, ‘Guys, I know what this is. Like, I’m good. I’m fine.’ But I really, like, admire and respect the way that they handled it. But I do think in my head, I was probably like, ‘I’m mature. I’m an adult. I know what’s going on here. Like, it’s fine, guys.’”

Meanwhile, back in 2023, Hamm married Mad Men co-star Anna Osceola at the location of the show’s finale, Big Sur.

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