Is Jon Hamm Emmy's main man?

Matinee-idol handsome Jon Hamm, 37, has been a working actor for the last eight years appearing on TV series such as "Providence," "The Division" and "The Unit" and in such films as "Kissing Jessica Stein" and "We Were Soldiers."

But "overnight" stardom hit the St. Louis-native last summer when cable's AMC premiered its acclaimed series "Mad Men," the sophisticated, stylized drama set in the early 1960s on Madison Avenue that follows the lives of the ambitious men and women who work in the cutthroat world of advertising. The hour-long series, which recently won the Peabody and is among the semifinalists for a dramatic series Emmy, was created by executive producer Matthew Weiner ("The Sopranos").

Hamm has already won the Golden Globe and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his sexy, complex turn as Don Draper, the successful creative director and subsequent junior partner in a large Madison Avenue ad company who has a beautiful wife, two darling children and the house in the 'burbs. He also is a flagrant womanizer who has numerous secrets including the fact that he was born Dick Whitman, the illegitimate child of a prostitute. But he switched dog tags with an officer named Don Draper who was killed while the two men were posted at an isolated base during the Korean War.

The former teacher chatted recently about his life on "Mad Men" and the awards season whirl.

So you're calling from New York?

I am in fact in New York.

Are you on Madison Avenue?

A little south! I'm on Lexington Avenue and Gramercy Park.

"Mad Men" just made the Top 10 finalists for the best dramatic series Emmy. I bet there will be multi-Emmy nominations, including one for yourself, for the series.

You're lips to God's ears.

Well, you got the Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination. With the Emmys, if there is no strike, we'll actually see you on stage.

If everything works out as planned, I'll get all my awards without ever having to go on the stage again.... No. No. No. It's actually been amazing to even [think about the Emmys]. Not unlike the Golden Globes, when you look at the other people being mentioned [as nominees] including me, it's just an incredible honor.

It's nearly been a year since "Mad Men" premiered. Did you have any idea at this time last year, the series would become the success it has?

No, of course not. Nobody gets into this business to kind of work their way into the middle. So you hope to be involved with good projects. I think from the beginning that I, along with everybody from AMC and everybody who worked on the show, thought this was a really good project. But the overwhelming response -- and almost universal response -- has been nothing short of breathtaking. We are in New York because we won a Peabody Award -- it just feels great.

You don't think, at least I don't, "I am going to do this to get an Emmy or a Golden Globe," but when other people decide for you that they want to award those things to you it just feels great.