Jon Hamm doesn't know why Jon Hamm isn't in the MCU, either

Jon Hamm has been having a pretty good year over in the world of TV: After being a big part of the much-talked-about (if also frequently ridiculed) recent season of The Morning Show, he’s now cruised into a starring role in the fifth season of FX’s Fargo, giving an instantly mesmerizing (and, uh, eye-catching) role as one of the season’s primary antagonists.

All of which has led to the Mad Men star, not for the first time, fielding a question that haunts every actor at a certain level of stature in our modern world, i.e., “Hey, Jon Hamm, why aren’t you in the Marvel Cinematic Universe” yet? Hamm’s answer: “I don’t know.”

This is per a recent interview Hamm gave to Screen Rant, in which he makes it clear that, had he his druthers, he’d be in a cape or cowl in a minute. (Won’t someone give Jon Hamm his druthers?) “Those decisions get made at such a high level at this point, definitely above my pay grade. I would love to,” Hamm noted. “I’ve been a fan of Marvel Comics and comics in general since I was probably single digits. I think there are tons of stories that I’m familiar with, at least, that are still out there to be told.”

Hamm was reportedly in talks to play Mr. Sinister in the old Fox X-Men franchise, before Disney took those films out back after buying the studio a few years back and gave them the Old Yeller treatment. (He also, if you want to get nitpicky, had a pretty distinctive role in Fargo creator Noah Hawley’s X-Men TV series Legion, albeit only as a narrator for several weird interstitial segments in the show’s second season.)

(This is also, at the risk of being mean, where we feel moved to note that even Hamm would probably acknowledge that his television and film careers have operated at very different levels of success over the years; not even making an objectively great Fletch movie last year could knock the poor man out of the “supporting guy who tells Maverick not to fly the planes so damn fast” niche that movies seem to want to trap him in.)

But Hamm remains optimistic, as Hamm must. “Hopefully, whatever their plans are, they include me,” he said, ascribing to Kevin Feige a level of unknowing reverence that pilgrims often point toward God. “But if not, I know that they have a pretty deep bench of folks that are ready to be a part of those stories. There are certainly a lot of stories in the X-Men world to be told.” And then he really tempted fate and said the double-d words, thus bringing the all-seeing eye of Fantastic Four fan speculation down on his head: “Fantastic Four as well, [like] Doctor Doom. There are so many great things out there. But yeah, I hope I get a chance. Who knows?”