Jon Hamm Talks Getting Naked, Wearing Fake Nipple Rings in ‘Fargo'

Mad Men star Jon Hamm appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night to discuss his wild role as corrupt North Dakota sheriff Roy Tillman on Hulu’s Fargo. The fifth season of Noah Hawley’s anthological crime series was shot amidst below-freezing temperatures in Calgary, but Hamm was still compelled to strip down for a fully nude outdoors scene, complete with fake nipples and real piercings.

Hamm told Kimmel that if he’d known exactly how cold it would be in Canada, he might have reconsidered his nudity decision. “I thought I had a rider in my contract. Naked’s fine,” the hopeful Marvel villain said. “Cold naked is not great. I’m more of a warm naked [guy].”

The scene in question occurs in Fargo’s fifth season premiere. Tillman is defending his ethics to a female FBI agent, with her male partner standing by, as he lounges nude in his hot tub. The first half of the scene shows him from the chest up, showcasing two pierced nipples. At the end of the scene, Tillman stands, revealing his entire backside, and throws a leg over the side of the pool, leaving little to the imagination.

Stunned by how much the actor bared, Kimmel inquired what the two actors in front of Hamm were seeing as he stepped from the hot tub. “The glory of God’s creation,” the actor joked, “and a flesh-colored sock that is cinched around,” he said as he made a knotting motion at his crotch.

“We call it a cock sock, Jimmy,” Hamm explained frankly, before confirming there was no “cock sock handler” on set. “I was hands-on for that,” he winked at the audience. “Going on 52 years of experience, so I’m real good.”

Perhaps surprisingly, the most complicated part of the sequence was Hamm’s nipples, which were fitted with two gleaming rings. They were “real nipple rings pierced through a fake nipple,” he reported.

Hamm then displayed a picture of himself in a makeup chair having blue nipple pads pasted to his real pecs by a technician. “Magic doesn’t happen by itself, Jimmy,” the actor admitted.

Hamm has stripped down for a few other projects in the past, but often in the context of broad comedy. He showed off a similar view of his backside on the Amazon series Good Omens in 2019. The comedy Bridesmaids (2011) begins with a scene in which Hamm is shown fully nude, albeit mostly obscured. Fargo is the first time the actor has so brazenly bared it all, and judging from the warm reaction he’s received, it may not be the last.