LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: A new streaming series considers how far the wealthy might go to keep up appearances. Jon Hamm plays Coop, a hotshot hedge fund manager. He's lost his wife to divorce, and now he's lost his job.
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JON HAMM: (As Andrew Cooper) I was thinking about alimony, child support, legal fees, two houses, a maxed-out home equity line, tuition...
FADEL: With no money coming in, Coop decides to break into the mansions in his neighborhood and steal his friends' stuff.
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HAMM: (As Andrew Cooper) I'm not saying it was a good idea. It was just temporary, a quick fix to pay some bills until I got back on my feet. And I figured, what's the worst that could happen?
FADEL: The unraveling of Coop is at the heart of "Your Friends & Neighbors," now streaming on Apple TV+. Jon Hamm says, by all accounts, Coop did everything right up until the point we meet him.
HAMM: Getting to this place means so much, and then we realize that it can evaporate in seemingly an instant. Another character says to him, at some point, you know, your mistake was thinking that any of this was ever truly yours. And that's another, you know, kind of theme of the show of, like, if all of this stuff is so ephemeral, then why do we ascribe so much meaning to it? And does it, in fact, really mean anything? Does it define us?
FADEL: So as one does, Coop goes from hedge fund manager to robbing people in his own community, his really, really rich friends.
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HAMM: (As Andrew Cooper) Westmont Village has its own private security patrol, as well as the Westmont Police Department. The crime rate is almost nonexistent. If you live in a place like that long enough, you start to feel insulated from the rest of the world. You get complacent about things like alarm systems and locking all your doors.
FADEL: And he doesn't seem to struggle with this transition. Why do you think that is?
HAMM: You know, I think he struggles with a lot of the logistics of said transition.
FADEL: (Laughter).
HAMM: But one of the tag lines is you don't know what you're missing. And I think so much of what the show talks about is this ridiculously conspicuous consumption that we have. The stuff that these people have acquired, this...
FADEL: Yeah.
HAMM: ...Ridiculous amount of - how many bags does a person need to be happy? How many watches does anybody really need? And as Coop finds out, you know, he thinks these people don't necessarily miss this stuff, but maybe they do, and he doesn't really realize what these people think of this. And it's a very interesting question that the show asks - is this stuff really worth this amount of money?
FADEL: I mean, I've definitely never had to put an alarm on one of my purses. Let's just say that.
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HAMM: You don't have a purse alarm?
FADEL: I don't have a purse alarm. I feel like if you're carrying a purse, it should be protecting the money inside.
HAMM: Exactly.
FADEL: So he's not exactly Robin Hood, right? He's stealing from the rich, but he's doing it to maintain a similar lifestyle that he'd been living. So is Coop a good person?
HAMM: That's the question, right? I think he's trying to find his way back into being a good person. And what does that entail, right? I think he is realizing that these interconnected decisions that he has made that has gotten him to this place in his life have been sometimes decisions that have been directed by the wrong motivations. What he realizes is that life is and should be more about the relationships that you have and maintain rather than necessarily the acquisition of so much material stuff.
FADEL: In the process of this, you have a bond and partnership with Elena, the housekeeper of someone in Coop's circle. And at one point, she tells him when they're talking about what they're doing.
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AIMEE CARRERO: (As Elena Benavides) You've never gone hungry. Your kids will never go hungry. You just want what they took from you because all you know how to be is rich.
HAMM: (As Andrew Cooper) Elena...
CARRERO: (As Elena Benavides) You have no idea what real struggle is, Coop.
HAMM: That's a pretty significant moment, I think, both for Coop and for the show, and I think really establishing those two worlds as certainly involved with one another but very separate. This is someone who is very much on the outside looking in and for whom this generational wealth is decidedly life-changing, and it's treated by most of the other people in this story as a trifle.
FADEL: Yeah. I mean, the sums of money that are thrown around as if it's just normal, like, oh, we need $10,000 for this. We need $50,000 for this. And for the first time, Coop has to be like, wait a second. Do I have that money?
HAMM: Yeah, when you look at it in a pile, and you say, this is what that money looks like...
FADEL: Yeah.
HAMM: ...It's sobering, for sure.
FADEL: Yeah. I mean, you work in an industry that, beyond the work - the creative work that you do, has the trappings of luxury. You know, I just wonder how much you drew on people in your own life, your - things you've come across in this industry that has that side of it.
HAMM: Quite a bit. I mean, it's, you know, you don't have to look too far in Hollywood to realize that there's quite a few parallels to this world, as well. But then you also see something like what happened in the Palisades and in Altadena. And like that, it can all go away, you know? And just because people are wealthy or rich or well off or what have you, you know, doesn't make it any less devastating when they lose everything that they...
FADEL: Yeah.
HAMM: ...Worked, in many cases, a lifetime to achieve and to - and that's meaningful to them in many ways. So there's two sides to every conversation, for sure. But, yeah, we kind of take a little more of a (laughter) ironic look at it, for sure.
FADEL: And my last question. I mean, I was watching this and thinking, there's a joy that people get in watching rich people fall apart, really. Why do you think that is?
HAMM: You know, I think that rich people behaving badly seems to be a - or getting their comeuppance seems to be a bit of a trend these days. And I think it has something to do with where we are culturally and certainly politically when we see these people who are billionaires that are making decisions seemingly haphazardly about people's jobs and lifestyle and welfare. And there is something about the way certain rich people are behaving right now that makes us all really want them to have some sort of comeuppance. So maybe this will resonate with those people.
FADEL: Jon Hamm - he's the star and executive producer of the new series "Your Friends & Neighbors." Thank you so much, and congratulations.
HAMM: Thank you very much. Lovely talking with you.
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