John Hamm in The Town
The Town sees Ben Affleck return to the director's chair for the first time since the huge critical success of Gone Baby Gone.
The actor turned filmmaker has assembled an impressive cast of Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner and Pete Postlethwaite.
How would you describe Agent Frawley?
I had the good fortune to meet with quite a few law enforcement agents in Boston when we were preparing to do the film. What you learn very quickly is that these guys are overworked and underpaid and they're very good at their job.
Their job is very simple. They stop bad people from doing bad things. And when the bad people do the bad things, they catch them and make sure they don't do them again.
It’s very simple. So that informed my character very much - there's not a lot of sympathy for criminals.
So it made my character choices and some quasi-manipulative qualities in my investigation all the more fun. It was a fun character to play.
Had you met Ben Affleck before and were you a fan of his films?
I was very much a fan of his film. My girlfriend and I had seen it (Gone Baby Gone) in Deauville at the film festival and we were blown away.
The fact that that was somebody's first filmmaking effort was amazing to me. I think with this film they have a lot of similar DNA, but they're very, very different in style and approach.
I'm a huge fan. I had not met him before we started working together on this. But now, I consider him a very good friend and had a wonderful time working on the film.
Now, you didn’t get to do any of the fun bank robbery or car chase scenes, but you were at Fenway. What was it like?
It was amazing. I mean, I'm a huge baseball fan. I'm from St. Louis, Missouri - and I don't necessarily like the Red Sox, but that's a conversation for another time.
But we got to shoot at one of the most historic places for a baseball fan on the planet. The people of Boston couldn't have been nicer to let us bang around there for two weeks.
We got very fortunate in that the Red Sox were out of town for a 15-day road trip and we had no rain. It was a blast. I mean, it's Fenway Park. We got to run around one of the great baseball stadiums in the country.
Now, how was it really going face to face with Ben in that great scene where you really come over the table at him?
It was fun to shoot. Ben was directing that scene as well as being in it, so it was very tricky for him. He would get very excited if the scene was going well as a director, so it was tricky to manage both sides.
But I think the scenes were done really well. I had a wonderful time shooting that scene, and he's a fantastic scene partner.
The Town Is Available To Own On Blu-Ray and DVD on Jan 31st
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