Jon Hamm Has A Laugh Before Air Travel
Jon Hamm attends the SundanceTv and The Hollywood Reporter Festival Kick Off Party on Jan 20,
Samira Wiley and Jon Hamm attend the J. Crew, Vulture and New York Magazine hosted official "Person to Person" after party on January 20,
Hamm's 'moving' Sundance reunion
about reuniting with Sam Elliott after 15 years...
“He was in the first movie I ever did. I made sure to keep my mouth shut and my eyes open when I was around Sam because he taught me a lot about being a professional actor. A lot about behaving on set, a lot about being prepared and a lot about life. I got to see him for the first time since we shot that movie and he looks great and it was really great to see him again. It was moving and really nice to reconnect with someone that cool.”
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Marjorie Prime premiere
Majorie Prime - Sundance 2017 World Premiere Q&A
Jon Hamm On Playing A Hologram In 'Marjorie Prime'
private dinner hosted by Nobu, at The Lift
the "Marjorie Prime" Party at the Acura Studio
'Marjorie Prime' Goes From Stage to Screen
The IMDb Studio featuring the Filmmaker Discovery Lounge, presented by Amazon Video Direct
attends The Vulture Spot Presented By Tidal at Rock & Reilly's
with founder of Cinetic Media, John Sloss, attend the Cinetic Sundance Party
attend the Creators League Studio
with Common Deadline Hollywood Studio at Sundance Presented by Applegate
The Hamm hologram (or holohamm) was created with tech from 8i, a company focused on creating "volumetric" videos of real people -- essentially, 3D captures of humans that you, as a viewer, can walk all around.
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The holohamm was created for the premiere party of the film "Marjorie Prime" at the Sundance Film Festival. In the movie, the "Mad Men" actor actually plays a hologram, an artificially intelligent simulation of an elderly character's deceased husband designed to keep her company.
So why not make an actual Hamm hologram for the premiere? Best party trick ever.
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At the party Monday, fans and other stars scurried up for their moments with the holohamm. Co-star Geena Davis held the holohamm in her hand, too, and took the liberty of giving of him a sharp poke. (Luckily, the holohamm feels no pain.) The real Hamm joined her and a life-size holohamm later to make a "Hamm sandwich," with Davis in the middle. Left on his own with his holographic avatar, the real Hamm petted the holohamm like a puppy.
Sundance Notebook: OK, I get it, Jon Hamm is really, REALLY handsome
I have always been intrigued by the female fixation on Jon Hamm.
The actor, who stars in the Sundance film “Marjorie Prime,” seems to have most of my female friends perpetually weak in the knees. His attractiveness has become a thing of legend — it seems most of his roles have this hotness as a key component or plot point. (Not to take away from his obvious acting chops.) Now, I’m a reasonable, sympathetic, comfortably heterosexual man with two working eyes, so I get it. Jon Hamm is a good-looking guy. But I never fully understood the level of attraction my female friends had for him. Hamm didn’t seem any more attractive to me than any other handsome actor.
Now, though, I totally get it — at least as much as a straight man can. Just a few minutes ago I interviewed Hamm about his role in “Marjorie Prime” while sitting right next to him on a couch. Minutes before that, I prepped for the encounter by watching him from a distance, just to calibrate myself. And you know what? The guy has an allure. It’s undeniable. He’s handsome, warm, funny, relatable. I mean, if by some circumstance he hit on me I’d probably blush and wonder if I really had a shot.
http://www.heraldextra.com/entertainment/movies/sundance/sundance-notebook-ok-i-get-it-jon-hamm-is-really/
Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Tim Robbins, Lois Smith on 'Marjorie Prime' | Sundance 2017
The performances are impeccable. Davis keeps a careful lid on Tess' anxiety and resentment, the character's troubled history undergoing its own reordering in later scenes. Robbins' loving, patient Jon orbits around her as someone long accustomed to navigating his wife's sharp edges. Hamm is superb, his handsomeness offset by straight-backed stiffness and a penetrating gaze that somehow suggests compassion and connection, making him in effect a sentient gadget with a subtle sense of humor.
Sundance 2017 "Marjorie Prime" IndieWire Panel at Chase Sapphire
Marjorie chooses to recreate her late husband’s 40s, which is why he’s played by Jon Hamm.
“You wouldn’t think of him being my husband, would you?” Smith says, her voice practically winking. “But he is. Isn’t that fun? I am to be envied.”http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/26/the-86-year-old-breakout-star-of-sundance.html
Jon Hamm On Playing A Hologram And How He Knows The Falcons Can Beat The Patriots
One of the last times I interviewed you was for an oral history of The Dana Carvey Show.
- That came out great, too. That was really cool. Oh, man, I loved that show. Watching old clips of that you realize how ahead of its time that show was. I mean, it presaged Mr. Show, which was already ahead of its time. [Hamm sees my St. Louis Blues snow hat.] Whoa, look at that. That’s hot stuff.
I’m ready for a run from them.
- I’m ready too, man. They’ve got to start playing well.
Your sports allegiances are appealing to me. We root for all the same teams: Cardinals, Blues, Mizzou, and even the Chiefs.
- Yeah, I was sad to see the Chiefs lose. I was still hoping they were going to do it.I don’t think they would have beaten Brady in Foxborough.
- I don’t know, it’s interesting. Everybody knows what you have to do to beat the Patriots, and no one can do it. And it’s like the only people that have done it are the New York Giants in the Super Bowl, twice, consistently. Like you’ve got to put Brady on his ass, and you can’t turn the ball loose. That’s it. And the Texans did it for one half, and then they just forgot.
They really did look good for one half.
- And then they forgot. They’re just like, Oh, well, it seems to be working. Let’s change everything. Oh, and what ends up happening is that the Patriots also are so exceedingly well coached that they adjust.
My headline, “Jon Hamm breaks down the NFL playoffs.”
- I do think Atlanta’s going to be a tough match-up for the Pats because they’re like a ten-headed hydra. I mean, they just have so many, so many weapons. What the Patriots will probably do is what they did against the Rams in 2000 or, whenever it was, and just hold them. Hold the receivers off the line and make them throw a flag.
Marjorie Prime, this movie is fascinating.
- I think so.
How familiar were you with the play?
- I wasn’t familiar at all with it. I was familiar with Michael Almereyda’s work as a filmmaker and I found his work intriguing in the best sense of that word – and challenging and interesting. And so when I read the script and I found out that Lois Smith was playing Marjorie and that Michael was directing, I thought, well, this is quite an interesting combination of elements to come together in a weird little movie. I wonder what it will be like? And I was incredibly pleased with how it came out.With the score, it’s very ominous.
- It’s ominous in a way; it’s uplifting in a way – it’s very subjective. And for a movie kind of about memory, I think subjectivity is kind of a nice thing. I was saying to somebody else, but it doesn’t spoon-feed you plot or details. There’s no right answer for a lot of this stuff.
I liked Geena Davis’s line that every memory is a memory of a memory, so they get chiseled down.
- [Geena Davis, who I didn’t notice was sitting right next to us, chimes in: “That’s hilarious, you’re talking about me while I’m right here. I love it!”]
I didn’t see you. I’m happy I said something positive. I will say, you all set the record for the most rambunctious entrance at a Sundance premiere I’ve ever seen.
- Dropped my phone! I mean, it was a whole thing. You know, it’s been snowing all day. Look, I’ve been here in various capacities and I know the end of the first weekend people are a little tired. It’s been snowing, it’s hot, it’s cold. I want to give everybody a little charge sometimes.
If the hologram was a real service, would you use it?
- Well, I don’t know. But I think it’s probably something that we will all have to think about in our lifetime.
I can imagine it at first as just being on a screen, and then eventually it turns into what this movie kind of shows.
- I bet it’s coming. I bet something like this is coming.
I think I’d use it. At first I was like, no way. By the end of the movie, yeah, I probably would.
- Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know if it would be comforting or not and I think that’s the uncertainty that the movie deals in.
I think if you had things that were left unsaid, it could at least maybe help with that.
- Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I mean, look, I lost my mother when I was nine years old, so it would be interesting to have some facsimile of her for various reasons – to have a mom, to have somebody to talk to. And I think in a therapeutic sense, it would probably be good. But I don’t know. It’s weird enough seeing Peter Cushing onscreen and Carrie Fisher as a young person onscreen. The uncanny valley is a weird place to live in, you know?
Last time I interviewed you, you received a text from one of your handlers that the Mizzou football team had won…
- They were a good team then that year, right?
They were a very good team. But I had just checked the score and they had lost by a lot and I had to tell you that. It reminded me of the 30 Rock episode where your character is in a bubble.
- [Laughs.] Yeah, I remember that now. I do remember that.
Do they just always lie to them about Cardinals and Mizzou scores?
- You know, usually the answer is that they’re clueless. A lot of people in this business, especially on the publicity side, don’t really care about sports.
So they just say, “Good news, they won!”
- “I think they won, yeah. I think they won. I think they won. They probably won.”
You were so excited. I was so bummed I had to tell you they lost.
- Aw, nooo. I can’t believe I didn’t just check it, you know?
Well, it was in Toronto and there are international fees. It’s expensive to check.
- Oh, right. Yeah. Of course. I was just in Toronto. It’s so nice up there.
You’re in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver. I am very excited.
- I never know what finds an audience and what doesn’t and unfortunately I don’t really have to, necessarily. That’s not really up to me, marketing and all that stuff is up to the people. But I do think it’s a good movie and I do think it’s an interesting movie. And Edgar’s such a talent.- Yeah, World’s End was a few years ago now. You know, he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t make a movie until he wants to make a movie. And so, when the Ant-Man thing happened and they said, “You’re making a different movie than the one you wanted to,” he said, “No, I’m not.” And, you know, God bless. I mean, that’s the kind of person that you want to go into battle with. And when he showed me the Baby Driver script — I did a read-through of that script before he went down the road on Ant-Man, so it was a while ago — and then he said, “Well, I want to make this movie.” And it’s hard. There’s a lot of things in it that are interesting, but very difficult to achieve for a price. And that’s kind of what we all have to deal with now. But I really like it. I think it’ll be surprising and cool.
Marjorie Prime is superbly acted, and it’s certainly interesting. Hamm strikes a wonderful balance as a talking re-creation that feels almost human, and the rest of the cast is equally nuanced.
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But even with all of that, I can’t say I loved Marjorie Prime. In spite of its technical execution, the film feels like it’s holding the audience at arm’s length, talking about these deep, profound themes in the intellectualized abstract.
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At the moment, Marjorie Prime hasn’t been picked up for distribution. But let’s be real: it’s a movie based on a celebrated play with a stellar cast. Eventually, it will end up at your local arthouse theater for a limited run, before making its way to the glorious world of video-on-demand and streaming.
http://www.theverge.com/2017/1/25/14374330/marjorie-prime-review-sundance-2017-jon-hamm Smith, the film’s backbone, brings a humanity as she struggles with teaching the Prime what to remember. Both her joy and confusion in recollection are rendered effectively across from Hamm, who feels born to play this robotic, unfeeling hologram. As Jon, Robbins also does impressive work, especially in a difficult conversation with Hamm’s Walter. They discuss a tragic moment in their family history and how inebriation can loosen one up to discuss such hard truths — an impossibility for Walter as Primes will never be truly human.
https://thefilmstage.com/reviews/sundance-review-marjorie-prime
Michael Almereyda’s Marjorie Prime, the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize finalist play by Jordan Harrison, won the Feature Film Prize
Marjorie Prime will receive a $20,000 cash award from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and “presented to outstanding feature films focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character.”
The film, from director and screenwriter Almereyda, is described as such: “In the near future—a time of artificial intelligence—86-year-old Marjorie has a handsome new companion who looks like her deceased husband and is programmed to feed the story of her life back to her. What would we remember, and what would we forget, if given the chance?” The cast includes Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Lois Smith, and Tim Robbins.
playbill.com
“Technology tends to only move in one direction,” the actor told TheWrap CEO Sharon Waxman at the Sundance Film Festival.
“It’s not like they go, ‘Oh, this hologram idea was a great idea but, eh, never mind.'”
“There always has to be a person at the end of it until we create computers that create computers and then we’re well and truly f—ed,” said Hamm...
Jon Hamm's Hot-Man Sadness Ignored on the Set of "Marjorie Prime"
Jon Hamm as a Hologram Can’t Save This Lifeless Adaptation
Almereyda’s feature is rich in acting talent, but this stagey, flat drama can’t match the wattage of its leads. Major plot points are baffling, if only because the characters remain so vague to us. As “Marjorie Prime” continues, that becomes the film’s primary problem: Performances are solid, but characters are so thinly written that they prove impossible to know. Prime performances are purposely low key, but Hamm still breathes life into a role who’s literally made out of air. https://manmig.com/empire-movies/marjorie-prime-review-jon-hamm-as-a-hologram
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Angie: Marjorie Prime is based on a play, feels like a play, and seems like it probably would’ve been better off left as a play. Despite an intriguing Black Mirror-esque premise and strong performances from its central cast (Lois Smith, Geena Davis, Jon Hamm, and Tim Robbins), the film comes out feeling static and distant.
http://www.slashfilm.com/2017-sundance-film-festival-reviews/2/
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The added value of Jon Hamm in his best role since Don Draper won’t hurt either...........
The performances are impeccable. Davis keeps a careful lid on Tess’ anxiety and resentment, the character’s troubled history undergoing its own reordering in later scenes. Robbins’ loving, patient Jon orbits around her as someone long accustomed to navigating his wife’s sharp edges. Hamm is superb, his handsomeness offset by straight-backed stiffness and a penetrating gaze that somehow suggests compassion and connection, making him in effect a sentient gadget with a subtle sense of humor.
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Two disappointments
Something is lost in the shift from Daniel Clowes' graphic novel to Craig Johnson's big screen with "Wilson," in which Woody Harrelson plays an annoying misanthrope all too well. And the stage-to-screen leap for Michael Almereyda's "Marjorie Prime," in which hologram creations ape dead relations, never convinces or engages, despite the best efforts of Jon Hamm, Geena Davis, Lois Smith and Tim Robbins.
Variety Studio interview
or
Jon Hamm Wears Great Beanie in Snowstorm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoP91D0g8vc
Vanity Fair
Was "La La Land" Jon Hamm's Idea?
The "Mad Men" actor talks about his latest role as a hologram in "Marjorie Prime." http://video.vanityfair.com/watch/sundance-film-festival-was-la-la-land-jon-hamm-s-idea
Hamm attends the wall signing posing for a photo in front of the wall at The Vulture Sundance Spot held at Rock & Reilly's in Park City.
with Connie Britton
video
'Marjorie Prime' Star Jon Hamm on His Fear of Being Replaced by a Hologram
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Jon Hamm signing autographs in Sundance (January '17)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihRdEq2i9cw
“The casting began with Lois, the nucleus of the film. A friend of mine plays softball with Jon Hamm, so I was able to contact him, then Geena came aboard. I had worked with Tim on my very first film, before he was well-known, and I didn’t think he’d want to do it at first.
http://www.filmjournal.com/features/double-feature-michael-almereyda-unveils-elegant-sci-fi-marjorie-prime-and-intriguing
Asked what he thinks is the key to Smith’s appeal and longevity, Hamm said, “I don’t know that it’s a formula, but I really think there’s something about the way she doesn’t make a big deal of it. She doesn’t present a diva aura — she’s just there and ready to do the work.”
Of how that unflappability helped her in “Marjorie Prime,” Hamm said: “The last thing you want to do is turn this into a sad meditation on death. And Lois didn’t do that at all. She tapped into a real sense of wonder at this new, weird thing.”
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-lois-smith-marjorie-prime-20170817