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That was actually one of the nicer things Hamm has said about his character. "Playing this guy does not come without its own difficulties. It's not fun to live in this guy's headspace year after year," Hamm told Variety before the show's final season last year. "It's relentless. And it can be hard on you as a person."

Hamm acknowledges that some fans of the show admire the impossibly handsome, powerful ad executive who drinks all day and can bed any woman he wants. He has said he thinks fans get a "vicarious thrill" out of TV antiheroes like Draper, Walter White and Tony Soprano, perhaps because they are "doing everything wrong and getting away with it."

"I'm always surprised when people are like, 'I want to be just like Don Draper.' I'm like, 'You want to be a miserable drunk?' I don't think you want to be anything like that guy," Hamm told Time Magazine in 2014. "The actual guy's rotting from the inside out and has to pull it together."

Hamm's hatred of his own character is complicated by comparisons between him and Draper — when you lose yourself in a role like that, it's natural that viewers are going to assume you share some characteristics. In the interview with Variety, Hamm referred to Draper as a "dark, brooding, alcoholic womanizer," which prompted the publication to ask if he saw himself the same way.

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"Not as far as I know," Hamm shot back. "I think I'm a pretty regular person thrust into incredibly irregular circumstances. It's weird to get super-famous, super-fast. It's really hard. In the grand scheme of things, it's not the hardest thing in the world … (but) it takes a lot out of you emotionally."

Still, it's unlikely Hamm will ever truly escape the Draper comparisons, no many how many times he branches out with hilarious roles on comedies like "30 Rock" and "Parks and Recreation." When Hamm entered rehab for alcoholism early last year, people couldn't help but speculate if the psychological toll of playing Draper had an impact.

"Obviously there can be a lot of discussion about how much of this is related to that and honestly I don't have much to say about that either," Hamm said curtly to Australian publication TV Week. "I've said in varying ways that acting can be a difficult endeavour, certainly not as difficult as the recent example I used of being a baby heart surgeon. But it does present its own challenges, and so does life."

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The "Mad Men" writers did use some aspects of Hamm's real-life backstory (such as his difficult relationship with his father) to inform the show. "I think Matt Weiner and the writing staff have wisely mined that source for its dramatic motherlode so to speak," Hamm noted dryly of Draper's past, which included quite the dysfunctional childhood. At the same time, he said, he didn't use the "method" approach, and in fact was determined to leave the character behind on set.

"I am very cognizant that I am playing a character," he explained to the Guardian. "Don Draper is a pretty dismal, despicable guy, so why I would want to take him home with me I don't know."