Jon Hamm Shares His Brutally Honest Thoughts on Why “Mad Men”'s Don and Betty Draper Could Never Get Back Together

Meredith Wilshere, Abby SternSun, April 19, 2026 at 4:00 PM UTC

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Jon HammCredit: Charles Sykes/Bravo via Getty -

Jon Hamm compared his Mad Men character's broken marriage to his current role on Your Friends and Neighbors

Hamm explained why Don and Betty Draper's relationship was irreparable, calling it fractured and built on lies

Mad Men remains culturally relevant over 10 years after it ended

After having played Don Draper for nearly eight years, Jon Hamm knows the businessman inside and out — and has a keen perspective as to why his marriage didn't work out.

At PaleyFestLA's panel for Hamm's latest show, Your Friends and Neighbors, the 55-year-old actor was asked about the relationship between his and Amanda Peet's characters, Andrew "Coop" Cooper and Mel Cooper.

However, Hamm couldn't help but recall another couple that had issues, drawing a connection between the Coopers and the Drapers from Mad Men.

“I had a version of this when I was shooting a little television show called Mad Men," he said at the April 11 event. "Where people were like, ‘Why can't Don and Betty get back together?' And I was like, ‘Because their relationship is f---ing terrible, horribly fractured and broken and it's built on lies.' "

Turning to the relationship dynamic in Your Friends and Neighbors, he noted, “This is not that. This is what we'd be getting into if we got back together.”

January Jones and Jon HammCredit: Frank Ockenfels/AMC

Hamm played the manipulative ad man on Mad Men for seven seasons from 2007 to 2015, alongside his on-screen wife, Betty, played by January Jones.

Meanwhile, his character, Coop, in the Jonathan Tropper-led series is a seemingly put-together hedge fund manager who resorts to burglary after losing his job. Amid it all, his marriage to his wife also breaks down after discovering she had an affair.

“The point being that there is a reason that they split and unless you fundamentally resolve the reason, then it's probably not great," Hamm explained. "At least they might want you like that. There's work to be done."

“We'll see,” he added about the fate of his fictional marriage on the Apple TV show, teasing that there is more to come in season 3.

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While Hamm's role as Don made him a household name, the actor previously admitted that he originally thought producers were "never going to cast me."

In a 2024 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Hamm explained that he had "an experience with another really good script that I read and I was like, 'I would do anything to get this part.' "

The script was for the role of Sam Seaborn in The West Wing, which ultimately went to Rob Lowe.

"So I thought the same thing would happen on Mad Men. I’ll give a great audition, and they’ll give it to a movie star," he admitted.

The cast of 'Mad Men'Credit: Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC

However, it turned out that Mad Men's creator Matthew Weiner didn't want a "superstar" — so Hamm was cast and the rest is history.

In addition to Hamm and Jones, the 1960s-set television show also featured John Slattery, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, Kiernan Shipka and Aaron Staton.

Mad Men remains a culturally relevant show over a decade after it ended. Last year, Hendricks admitted to PEOPLE that people still approach her “daily" about the series, which can admittedly feel "so strange."

"I think because people are still watching it," she said. "They'll say, 'I'm rewatching it,' or, 'I just started watching it, it took me this many years.' So it still feels very much a part of the culture and very much a part of the conversation, which I couldn't be more excited about because I don't ever want to let it go."

"So as long as people are talking," she added, "then it wasn't 20 years ago."

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