From The Hollywood Reporter · Mariel Turner · · 1m 20s
Jon Hamm's hostage story is a 1977 mirror
A 48-year-old kidnapping becomes Jon Hamm's way of talking about who gets ignored in America right now.
In brief
A 48-year-old kidnapping becomes Jon Hamm's way of talking about who gets ignored in America right now. The show's real question isn't who took a hostage, it's what took the hostage-taker: a promise of the American Dream that never paid out. Originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter.
Hamm plays the man at the mic
In American Hostage, Jon Hamm stars as a local news broadcaster pulled into the middle of a live hostage standoff.
A loan gone wrong
The setup is small and brutal: a disgruntled borrower kidnaps a mortgage broker. The story starts with money, not violence.
True story, 1977
It really happened, and Hamm already told it once as a narrative podcast of the same name before the series existed.
Decades old, reads like today
Hamm told The Hollywood Reporter at TIFF that the political themes of a 48-year-old crime line up closely with the present.
“I think that there's some thematic devices that resonate in the culture politically now”
The feeling of being overlooked
Hamm points to one thread as the connective tissue: a slice of the country that feels unseen and unanswered in what it wants and needs.
“a certain segment of the population being overlooked, or feeling overlooked or feeling under-addressed”
Who is the real hostage
The team fought to keep the title because it cuts two ways. One man takes a person hostage while being held by a promise of his own.
“This man obviously takes a person hostage, but is he in fact hostage to his American Dream?”
The short version
The show's real question isn't who took a hostage, it's what took the hostage-taker: a promise of the American Dream that never paid out.
