Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios

Disclosure: This post is part of an all expenses paid press trip to Los Angeles provided by Disney.  All thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.  All giggles and squeals will also belong to me while attending these events in LA!

Last Tuesday, I did something that a lot of women across the world are going to wish they had done. I interviewed Jon Hamm who stars in the NEW Disney movie Million Dollar Arm. I wasn’t alone, however, I was with 24 other very lucky bloggers and believe me, we know how lucky we were to have this opportunity!

Jon Hamm had a very busy day since it was the same days as the Hollywood movie premiere so we didn’t have a lot of time with him, so we were armed with our questions as to not waste any of his time. I was nervous as they told us he was getting off the elevator. The anticipation built up – would be he as handsome in person? would he be as nice? would I get the nerve to ask him a question so he’d have to make eye contact with me?

And then he was there – and yes he is just as handsome in person as he is on screen. You’ll have to believe me on that!

As you’ll read below, Jon Hamm, who was born and raised in Saint Louis Missouri, is a huge baseball fan and his favorite team is the Saint Louis Cardinals, without a doubt! He was shocked that he’d never heard of the story of the Million Dollar Arm as he considers himself a very big baseball fan.

So we immediately began asking him questions because we knew he had only a few minutes to be with us!

Were you filming Mad Men at the same time as Million Dollar Arm?

He told us he did not film the two concurrently. They wrapped season 6 of Mad Men and went right into filming the Indian portion of the movie which was shot in Mumbai. Jon told us almost the whole month of May they were in India filming. Jon was glad it worked out that way as doing the two at the same time. A sixteen hour flight from Mumbai to Newark and then shooting in L.A. would’ve been rough.

Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios

It looked like JB Bernstein’s character was struggling with that heat.  How was it for you to be there?

Jon said it wasn’t just the heat it was literally everything –  It’s a completely different culture.  And when you learn more about the actual J.B. Bernstein, on who his character was based on, he had to go through a lot to figure out how to do business in this country and figure out how to manage everything.  And he had no guarantee that it was going to work, at all.  It was a huge leap of faith.  If you speak with the real JB Bernstein now, he’s fairly conversant in Hindi and he’s been doing it for six or seven years now so he’s very much comfortable in Indian culture and this was a direct result of this experience that he had.    It was hot.  So much so that even the Indian crew were like, “Well, we don’t shoot in May.  You guys are idiots.  Like, the only ones who shoot in May are Americans.  Like, we go inside.”

haha.  That’s funny!

The story is so inspiring.  How did you get involved in the film?

Jon met Mark Ciardi and Gordon Gray who are the producers of the film and liked not only the kinds of movies that they made but, the kind of  stuff that they’ve done with Disney.  There was a kind of a sensibility that he sparked to.  And then he read the script which was written by Tommy McCarthy, who’s work he’d been a big fan of, plus he was really impressed with the script.

Jon Hamm did not know it was a true story at the time.  He said it somehow escaped his fairly detailed baseball radar.  Jon is a big baseball fan,  but I hadn’t heard of it.   So he did what everyone else does, he Googled around and looked up some stuff and he learned about it and he thought this could be not only a fun project to work on as an actor but just fun!  He would get to go to India and that could be an interesting experience too.  Jon is very, very glad he did.  He is tremendously proud of the film and he made some really good friends on it.

Do you think there was more pressure on you as an actor to portray somebody like a character based on a true story?

Jon thinks that if it was somebody that a lot of people knew,  there’s probably a little more pressure.  Like for Daniel Day Lewis playing Abraham Lincoln although no one around really knows him anymore.  But he did feel very responsible towards J.B. especially after having met him and kind of learning his story and learning how profoundly this experience changed his life.  We tried to tell that in the film. You know that actually happened to the guy.

J.B.’s  life was really changed for the better because of this experience.  And he did not set out to have some sort of life changing experience.  He just wanted to make money.  And sometimes that happens.  Unexpectedly you just all of a sudden find yourself affected by things and that’s J.B.’s story.  Jon felt very close to that and he didn’t want to misrepresent him at all.  But the real J.B. gave Jon Hamm his stamp of approval!

Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios

Has filming this movie and traveling to India changed your life in any positive ways?

Jon thinks that all travel should be kind of life affirming and eye-opening in some way.  This was certainly no exception for him.  He’d never been to Asia, much less India specifically, so he had no concept of what he was going to see.  He says that we’ve all seen photos of the Taj Mahal and the this and that but it was like every travel experience.  When you actually get there and you’re there in person, it’s in 3D.

Photo Credit: Walt Disney Studios

Jon says it’s the sights and smells and the heat and everything else that makes the experience even more worthwhile. He says he would totally go back in a heartbeat.  And it’s such a big country with so many influences that he saw like only the tip, tip, tip of the iceberg of.  So he’d love to go back.

While listening to all this I kept trying to get up the never to raise my hand and ask him a question and I finally did!  Here is what I asked him (nothing earth shattering but he talked pretty much directly to me while he answered so it was pretty awesome!)….

What was your favorite part of the movie and why?

Jon said there are actually a couple of favorites.  Most of the stuff they shot in India was pretty great to film because they were in the dirt and it was really, really exciting.  But there’s a scene toward the end of the film that he actually really liked shooting much more from an acting standpoint.  Which is basically when the kids throw J.B. his sort of “we’re bringing India to you” and they have that nice party. (That was one of my favorite parts too!)  It’s when J.B. realizes that they’re somehow feel like he’s disappointed in them.  Jon says the honest truth is that J.B. felt such responsibility for these kids by that point in their life and their career that the idea of him disappointing them somehow was soul-crushing to him.  He’s like you could never disappoint me.  That’s impossible.  

Jon goes on to explain that it’s because he’s their dad at that point, a surrogate dad.  He also says the boys were so wonderful in the film and they bring such heartfelt warmth to these characters that the emotion is really what helps to carry the film.  Jon believes that it could be just another movie about sports and feel good and this and that but the emotion that the boys bring to their parts really does carry it into a different world.

And finally our last question as time was running out…

How do you feel that this film is set apart from other sports films that have come along?

Jon thinks that like most good sports films, it’s not necessarily all about the sport. Like if you look at something like The Natural.  Ostensibly that’s about baseball or a baseball player.  But it’s really about this guy and his life and how it was changed and how it was interrupted and then he got to come back and fall in love and all that other stuff.  That’s a movie that if he watched two seconds of, he’d watch the whole thing and be a mess by the end of it.

But this movie is a family movie but it’s set against the backdrop of sports, in particular baseball.  But it would be a disservice to just say it’s a baseball movie because it’s,  for him at least it means much more than that.  So like back to the first question, That’s kind of one of the reasons why he wanted to do this film.  It just felt richer than just a game where he would hope they win the big game at the end. So that was what he hope they brought through the making of it.

I thought that was a great way to end the conversation.  Thankfully before he left he posed for a group shot with all of us.  Of course we all wanted to stand next to him but we couldn’t.  I’m just happy to have been in the same room with him.  And of course we had our moment when he answered my question.  A moment I’ll remember for a long time!

Million Dollar Arm premieres in theaters May 16, 2014.