{"id":11692,"date":"2026-07-13T12:15:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/?p=11692"},"modified":"2026-07-13T16:55:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T13:25:40","slug":"la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/2026\/07\/13\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Noire Developer Considered Mad Men Star Jon Hamm for the Role of Cole Phelps, but Had a Very Good Reason for Going With Aaron Staton Instead"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">The creative team behind LA Noire considered Mad Men star Jon Hamm for the role of Cole Phelps.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">I recently interviewed Daniel McMahon, a writer who worked on the Rockstar-published LA Noire, for a YouTube video about the 2011 detective game and its cancelled successor, Whore of the Orient. Our conversation was wide-spanning, but I was curious about one thing: was Jon Hamm ever considered for a part in the game?<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">For those that don&#8217;t know, LA Noire features a number of actors from the TV series Mad Men, including Aaron Staton, the man who plays the game&#8217;s protagonist, Cole Phelps. Hamm&#8217;s breakout role came from playing the lead of Don Draper in Mad Men, so I figured he must&#8217;ve been on developer Team Bondi&#8217;s radar.<\/p>\n<p><span data-cy=\"slideshow-view-trigger\"><\/p>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-preview\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 slideshow-preview\">\n<h3 class=\"title5 jsx-62124236 jsx-1085005187\" data-cy=\"slideshow-preview-title\">Every IGN Rockstar Game Review Ever<\/h3>\n<div data-cy=\"slideshow-images-container\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 images-container\"><button type=\"button\" data-cy=\"hero-image\" aria-label=\"Open Slideshow\" class=\"jsx-1711207865 hero-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt aria-hidden=\"true\" role=\"presentation\" class=\"progressive-image jsx-2896921488 image aspect-ratio aspect-ratio-16-9 jsx-2605834259 jsx-2338608387 hover-opacity\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead.gif\" data-cy=\"progressive-image\"><span class=\"button-text jsx-729543028 button button--primary jsx-3381835873 jsx-4266531355 row-pagination-button next contained centered round large\" data-cy=\"paginate next\" title=\"Open Slideshow\"><span class=\"ign-icon right-chevron jsx-2750866048 jsx-2919720488\" role=\"presentation\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-cy=\"right-chevron\"><\/span><\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">McMahon noted that Mad Men and LA Noire shared the same casting director, which is likely why the two projects share so many faces. He also confirmed to me that yes, Hamm was discussed as a possibility for the role of Cole Phelps. McMahon shared images of Hamm wearing a suit and hat from Mad Men with the team on the game, showing that he perfectly fit the vibe and tone of LA Noire. However, it didn&#8217;t happen.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;It was never said at the time, but now, I understand the vision which was Jon Hamm is a wonderful actor, but he&#8217;s not Cole Phelps,&#8221; McMahon said. &#8220;Jon Hamm would&#8217;ve been a much better Jack Kelso because he&#8217;s a character of great power, he&#8217;s a character of control. Jon Hamm knows what he&#8217;s doing and gets s**t done. <\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">&#8220;Aaron Staton was much better at portraying Cole&#8217;s fragility. A lot of the time, Cole&#8217;s flapping around having no idea what he&#8217;s doing. He&#8217;s very smart, but he&#8217;s also young, not very experienced, and he&#8217;s just trying his best. So, I think Jon Hamm would&#8217;ve been incredible, but expensive, and probably, in the end, not as good casting for that character as Aaron Staton was.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Cole Phelps and Don Draper do share similar stories, but are portrayed completely differently. Both men are World War II veterans trying desperately to run away from their failures overseas to avoid being consumed by guilt. They also both cheat on their wives, leading to the implosion of their families. Draper and Phelps are also consumed by their jobs and each career win inflates their ego, creating an unstainable arc. Their stories ultimately take different paths in the end, but it would&#8217;ve been interesting to see Hamm play Phelps or the game&#8217;s second protagonist, Jack Kelso, as McMahon suggested.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">Ever since LA Noire&#8217;s release, fans of the game have called on Rockstar to green light a sequel. Earlier this year, Strauss Zelnick, boss of Rockstar parent company Take-Two, gave fans a sliver of hope that LA Noire 2 might happen one day.<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\">\u201cBroadly, we\u2019re looking at doing something in the future with all of our intellectual property,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing to announce on LA Noire specifically, and if there were, it would be Rockstar announcing it, not me. But in any case, with regard to our legacy IP, the teams are always looking at what we have and we\u2019re always thinking about it. The question is, at any given time, do we have a team that\u2019s passionate about working on that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Photo by: Peter Kramer\/NBC\/NBC Newswire\/NBCUniversal via Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n<p data-cy=\"paragraph\" class=\"paragraph jsx-2269604527\"><em>Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN&#8217;s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/la-noire-developer-considered-mad-men-star-jon-hamm-for-the-role-of-cole-phelps-but-had-a-very-good-reason-for-going-with-aaron-staton-instead.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[50],"class_list":["post-11692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-49","tag-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11692"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11694,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11692\/revisions\/11694"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}