Jon Hamm explores the Dodgers and a dark history in Los Angeles in ‘The Big Fix’
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — Jon Hamm appreciates a challenge, so it makes sense that he’d want to play the central character in a story based on one of Los Angeles’ darkest chapters in the sprawling city’s history.
Hamm returns to Audible Originals as gruff, no-nonsense Detective Jack Bergin in “The Big Fix: A Jack Bergin Mystery,” all episodes of which are out today, an audio drama that weaves the story behind the Chavez Ravine evictions as the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s into a fictional murder-mystery.
“LA has a fascinating history,” Hamm told CNN in a recent interview. “There’s so much of it that people just don’t talk about because it’s a little problematic and because it’s been kind of bulldozed, literally and figuratively, in the name of progress.”
Before Dodger Stadium was the home of the LA Dodgers – a baseball team that has won eight World Series championships – the land on which the stadium sits was known as the Chavez Ravine, home to generations of Mexican-Americans.
Evictions for residents began in the early 1950s, when city officials used political tactics like eminent domain to acquire land or forcibly remove tenants so developers could build public housing projects. The public housing project eventually fell apart and by the late 1950s, only a small number of original Chavez Ravine residents still resided in the area. That is until Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley acquired the land and forcibly removed its remaining residents to build Dodger Stadium.
It’s an overlooked part of Los Angeles history that Hamm said is important to remember.
“To ignore it is to pretend that it never happened and to pretend it never happened means you don’t learn from it, and if you don’t learn from it, you’re going to do it again,” Hamm said.
The “Your Friends & Neighbors” star said while progress has been made over the past 70-plus years, an “incredible divide between the haves and the have nots” remains.
“If Elon Musk would take – and again, this is not this not something he needs to do – but if he would take his chainsaw to his own sort of personal wealth and spread it around, he could build 30 schools in each of the 50 states, and he could be the new Andrew Carnegie,” Hamm said. “But he doesn’t want to do that and that’s an interesting choice on his end.”
“The Big Fix” audio series sees Hamm reunite with his “Mad Men” costar John Slattery, as well as Alia Shawkat, Ana Del La Reguera, Omar Epps and Erin Moriarty.
Hamm’s other voiceover projects include 2022’s “The Big Lie” series, as well as roles in “Bob’s Burgers” and “Big Mouth,” among others.
“I really like doing it,” Hamm said. “I think it’s a fun and creative way to kind of engage in storytelling and I think (“The Big Fix”) is part of that.”
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