LOS ANGELES -- It all feels a bit alien to Jon Hamm.

In the 18 months since his Emmy-winning drama Mad Men debuted on the nascent U.S. cable network AMC, the 37-year-old has been catapulted from unknown actor to Golden Globe winner, Saturday Night Live host and magazine cover fixture.

FUTURE

And while he waits for word on the future of Mad Men -- the start of the third season hinges on the as-yet-undecided contractual fate of creator-executive producer Matthew Weiner -- Hamm has been busy filming a recurring role on 30 Rock as a love interest for Tina Fey.

All the while Hollywood's hype machine, echoed by the industry bible Variety, is hailing him as "the new Clooney." No pressure or anything.

Little wonder then that Hamm sums up the past two years as "bizarre to say the least ... It's new and weird and terrifying, but still very exciting."

Few anticipated Mad Men, about the lives of chain-smoking, Scotch-swilling ad executives in the 1960s, would have tapped the zeitgeist as it has. The key to its unlikely success? Hamm believes it's because the series, as much as it reflects the past, also mirrors the present.

"One of the big themes of the show is change and that's been kind of a significant watchword in the recent culture as well. And I think when you're looking at a time when there's a huge shift in the social vibe as there was the 1960s ... there are a lot of parallels ... So yeah, it's a cable show that nobody watches but it resonates larger than what it is. That's why the show has struck a chord."

And so has Hamm, as evidenced by his being chosen to host Saturday Night Live during its pre-presidential election heyday.

"It was certainly fun to do and I've been a fan of the show for a long, long time so to get the opportunity was just really cool. And then to piggyback that on to 30 Rock was a total trip."

For now he appears understandably content to simply share the spotlight with Oscar winner Jennifer Connelly, Keanu Reeves and director Scott Derrickson at a media conference to promote Friday's release of The Day the Earth Stood Still. It marks Hamm's first foray into big-budget filmmaking, although his role, while pivotal, is a small one.

To underscore the speed at which Hamm has ascended Hollywood's food chain, Derrickson points out that when they cast Hamm in the fall of 2007, only a few episodes of Mad Men had aired. "If there had been five more episodes on the air, we wouldn't have been able to afford him. That's the truth."

In the remake of the seminal science-fiction opus, Reeves stars as Klaatu, an alien entity who travels to Earth to warn humanity that it faces doom unless it turns away from its self-destructive path. After being captured by and then escaping from the U.S. military, he comes to rethink his stern appraisal of humanity when he encounters a scientist and single mother played by Connelly. Given the high-esteem the original holds in the minds of cinephiles and fanboys alike, Derrickson admits he wasn't sure remaking it for modern audiences was such a good idea.

"I was a bit skeptical when I read the script ... But I was struck by the idea of updating this movie because the original was so rooted in the social issues of its times. I loved the idea of story but bringing in the new messes we've gotten ourselves into."

ORIGINAL

Thus the anti-nukes theme that distinguished the 1951 film has been altered to an ecological one. Still he adds, "You need to respect the original and what can you take from the movie to make it great."

Including Gort, the towering android bodyguard with the signature single red optic slash. Derrickson confesses to initially wanting to revamp the iconic figure.

"I couldn't make sense of why this thing would be in human form and I spent a lot of time coming up with designs for these monster creature things that became increasingly ridiculous," he remembers. "Our visual effects supervisor (finally) said to me, 'Why aren't we making it just look like Gort?' I didn't want to acknowledge how dumb I felt."