You’d never know it by the jokes he cracks when hosting Saturday Night Live, or the way in which he easily fit into 30 Rock for a guest-starring stint, but Jon Hamm battled depression many years ago.
The Mad Men cast member opened up about his history with this disease in a new interview with Great Britain’s The Observer.
Saying he was “unmoored” by the deaths of his parents – Hamm’s mother died of stomach cancer and his father passed away a decade later – the actor explained: “I struggled with chronic depression. I was in bad shape. I knew I had to get back in school and back in some kind of structured environment and … continue.”
Hamm says work and good friends of his parents helped him find happiness.
“Antidepressants help!” he said. “If you can change your brain chemistry enough to think: ‘I want to get up in the morning; I don’t want to sleep until four in the afternoon. I want to get up and go do my s–t and go to work and…’ Reset the auto-meter, kick-start the engine!”
It’s worked for Hamm. He stars in The Town, the number-one movie in the country; has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards; and is in a stable relationship with actress Jennifer Westfeldt. We wish him the best!