Jon Hamm was seriously in the frame to play Cole Phelps, the lead detective in LA Noire, before the part went to his Mad Men co-star Aaron Staton. That is the account of Daniel McMahon, an additional writer who joined director Brendan McNamara on the game, speaking in a new interview with Cade Onder about LA Noire’s development, as first reported by Video Games Chronicle.
Who was originally pitched to play Cole Phelps?
Jon Hamm, who played Don Draper on Mad Men, was the name originally put forward for LA Noire’s protagonist. McMahon remembers the pitch vividly. “I remember sharing pictures of Jon Hamm in his suit wearing a hat, [and] being like: ‘Look at this guy. Like, look at this guy’,” he recalled.
The role instead went to Aaron Staton, who played Ken Cosgrove on the same show. Two Mad Men actors, one 1940s detective, and the part landing with the one whose face is less immediately associated with mid-century suited swagger — which, as McMahon tells it, was rather the point.
Why the writer thinks Staton was the better call
McMahon now believes Hamm’s presence would have worked against the character rather than for it. “It was never said at the time, but now I understand the vision, which was Jon Hamm is a wonderful actor, but he’s not Cole Phelps,” he explained.
His reasoning is that Hamm reads as authority. “Jon Hamm would have been a much better Jack Kelso, honestly, because he’s a character of great power, he’s a character of control,” McMahon said, contrasting that with Cole, who is “young, not very experienced” and “just trying his best.” Staton, he argues, was far better at conveying that fragility, the sense of a smart man “flapping around, having no idea what he’s doing.”
There was a practical dimension too. “So, I think Jon Hamm would have been incredible, but expensive, and – probably in the end – not as good casting for that character as Aaron Staton was,” McMahon concluded. It is a rare thing for a writer to look back on a might-have-been star casting and land firmly on the side of the actor who actually got the job, and the argument holds up: LA Noire’s whole facial-capture gimmick lived or died on subtle, uncertain performances, not commanding ones.
What happened to LA Noire after 2011?
LA Noire launched in 2011 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, later arriving on PC, and it never received a proper sequel. A planned spiritual successor, Whore of the Orient, was announced months after release and cancelled about five years later. The game did return in 2017 with Switch, PS4 and Xbox One ports, alongside a VR version titled LA Noire: The VR Case Files, developed by Video Games Deluxe, the studio McNamara founded after LA Noire.
Video Games Deluxe went on to handle the mobile versions of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – Definitive Edition and stepped in to fix the troubled console versions originally built by Grove Street Games. Rockstar then acquired the studio, renaming it Rockstar Australia. LA Noire itself remains available digitally, including on Xbox’s storefront, and carries a mature rating for its crime and violence.
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