Jon Hamm: 'I went up for every part'

Jon Hamm has said that he went up for all kinds of parts when he was beginning his acting career.

The Mad Men star admitted that he gave himself five years in order to find success as an actor before he would move on to a more conventional career path.

"I went up for everything. I’d get down to the end on big movies and then I’d flame out, which is devastating," he told W.

"It just sucks, especially when it’s fraught with, 'Oh, then I can pay my bills'. I would get so in my head that I would f**k up the auditions."

He continued: "I had given myself five years to be self-sufficient as an actor. I was already self-sufficient as a waiter. But I knew a lot of 40-year-old waiters and I didn’t want to be one of those. I had taught school and I knew that I could always go back to teaching.

"I gave myself to my 30th birthday, and my 30th birthday actually happened on the set of We Were Soldiers, which was my first big Hollywood movie - a Mel Gibson vehicle. I was making enough money to quit my waiting job."

Hamm added that he knew he wanted to be an actor from an early age.

"I played Winnie-the-Pooh in first grade," he said. "I was an early adopter of standing up in front of people and looking like an idiot. In high school I was a middle linebacker and I played Judas in Godspell."

The new season of Mad Men begins July 25 on AMC.