Thanks to Mad Men, we have Jon Hamm, but the role of Don Draper could have gone to a few different actors, including 1922's Thomas Jane and Younger's Peter Hermann. During an October 2011 appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Hamm revealed that Jane reportedly passed on the part because he "does not do television," though (as Hamm pointed out) Jane went on to star in HBO's Hung.
Christina Wayne, a former senior executive at AMC, also told TV Guide in July 2017 that AMC executives needed some convincing to cast Hamm. "Matt originally sent us tapes of Jon Hamm and Mariska Hargitay's husband [Peter Hermann]," Wayne said of Mad Men creator Matt Weiner. "Those were his two choices and he said he was leaning more towards Jon. We were like, 'Really? This is the guy you want?' It was not a particularly great audition." Pilot director Alan Taylor added that he was turned off by "Jon's handsomeness" as well. "It was only after we started to work with him and see that there was a kind of sadness and vulnerability . . . that I started seeing that side of him," Taylor said.