Jon Hamm, 55, admits to being ‘terrified’ of fatherhood

Jon Hamm got candid about his impending fatherhood, just over a week after his wife, Anna Osceola, debuted her baby bump at the Emmy Awards in a stunning black-and-white striped gown.

The 55-year-old shared on the Today show that he had received a lot of unsolicited parenting advice from friends, family and fans since news broke that his wife was pregnant.

“The best thing I keep hearing is how much it changes you for the better, and I’m excited,” the Mad Men star said.  

“I’ve been around kids my whole life. I’ve been a teacher, my nieces and nephews and all that stuff. So it’s thrilling and terrifying.”

Preparing for fatherhood

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Jon reiterated this fear on Late Night with Seth Meyers, explaining that while he was “very excited and deeply terrified” about welcoming a child, he thought he was “doing it right” by having those feelings.

“By the way, that doesn’t ever go away,” the late-night host chimed in. “That’s the thing I wish somebody had told me is like, they get born, and there’s not a moment where you’re like, ‘All right, I think we’re done.'”  Jon then quipped: “When your kid is like 70, you’re like, ‘I did it, right?’ You know, when I’m 152.”

A Mad Men love story

Jon and Anna met on the set of Mad Men in 2015 and began dating in 2020 before tying the knot in 2023 in the same location that the finale was filmed at, Big Sur.

“We did it [in Big Sur], which was also amazing. Again, it was like a reset, a reboot, a reframe, a reimagining, nine years later, almost to the day. So, it’s been great,” he told The Hollywood Reporter.

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Marriage was not on Jon’s radar, considering his parents were divorced and he had split from his former partner, Jennifer Westfeldt, in 2015 after 18 years together.

“I didn’t look at marriage as a thing. Obviously, my parents were not married long, so I don’t have a model to look at and go, ‘Oh, this is how one finds happiness.’ I just knew at a certain point I wanted to be with [Anna],” he explained. “But when I proposed, I was terrified. I was like, ‘What am I doing?'”

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“I just remember feeling, ‘This is really scary.’ Then going, ‘Well, it probably means it’s worthwhile,'” Jon continued. “And my wedding day was perfect. Everybody I love was there. It was so emotional, and it felt right. I was like, ‘Okay, I guess this is a thing.'”

The actor acknowledged that he will be “the old dad”, but admitted that “it could be a good thing”.

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Jon previously explained that thinking about starting a family with Anna had brought a whole new level of emotion to their relationship.

“[I’m] really thinking about all that stuff,” he said on The Howard Stern Show. “That’s made the relationship that I’m in now even more meaningful, and opened up the possibility of things like being married, having kids, defining a new version of happiness, life, wellness.”