Jon Hamm Recalls “Soul-Crushing” Experience Working in Soft-Core Porn

He may be one of the most talented actors on TV today, but the ’90s weren’t as kind to Jon Hamm.

The Mad Men star, whose 1996 appearance on a dating show recently surfaced, admits the mid ’90s were a low point in his life and competing on game shows wasn’t all he was doing.

“I was actually at that time working as a set dresser for Cinemax soft-core-porn movies,” he shares, calling the experience “soul-crushing.”

Now that he’s played ad exec Don Draper for seven years on the widely popular AMC series — along with roles in a slew of successful films — the 43-year-old is just as grateful for landing the gig.

“This is the best job I’ve ever had and maybe ever will have in my life — it’s so fun to play all of this,” Jon tells Vanity Fair.

“It can be relentlessly dark. It can be terribly sexually inappropriate, is a way to say it. But who else gets a chance to do any of that stuff? There’s so much there,” he adds.

In the magazine’s June issue, the Million Dollar Arm star also recalls a fun anecdote about fellow actor Paul Rudd, who shared a mutual friend with the Golden Globe-winner.

Though Jon had taken his friend Sarah Clarke to the prom, she seemed more interested in Paul, whom she met through her brother, Preston Clarke.

“I thought [Paul] was coming to visit me,” Preston tells VF, “but obviously he was coming to visit my sister. Hamm was there because he was always at my house…[Paul] was slightly intimidated.”

And the This is 40 star remembers feeling inferior. “He seemed like he was a good-looking, athletic guy who possessed qualities I did not possess,” Paul says. “We were playing Trivial Pursuit in teams…and I was like, ‘Oh great, this guy is smart, too.'”

He remembers, “They would ask a question like, ‘What is the largest lake in Africa?’ and Jon immediately went, ‘Lake Victoria.’ I felt so emasculated in the game that, as a result, I started reading atlases.”

We love these pre-Hollywood star stories! Keep them coming, guys!