Jon Hamm goes from sex buddy to other sports

How Jimmy Stewart of him. Surprisingly, Mad Men heartthrob Jon Hamm has actually never had a lead role in a feature film. Sure, he’s been the jerk love interest in Bridesmaids, the dedicated FBI agent in The Town, and a lawyer in Howl with James Franco. But, technically at this point, Jon Hamm, despite his gorgeous looks, is a character actor.

Usually character actors are the insatiably funny but somehow not beautiful types whose lines will forever be quoted (re: Melissa McCarthy’s character in Bridesmaids). Jon Hamm has been flexing his funny muscles in films and on SNL and 30 Rock, and now he's geting a chance to show how beautiful and leading-man-ish he can be. Million Dollar Arm, to be directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl, United States of Tara) is a biopic based on the life of agent J.B. Bernstein. Bernstein is well-known for having start a ‘Million Dollar Arm’ contest in India to recruit Indian cricket players to play Major League Baseball.

The film is in pre-production, set to be released in 2013 by Disney. Hamm looks a bit like a movie star version of Bernstein, and we’ll see if his dramatic skills are up to the task. At the very least, we know he genuinely loves baseball, judging by the sheer amount of papparazzi shots of him wearing various St. Louis Cardinals baseball hats. Um...not that we're keeping track or anything.