The 2011 detective game LA Noire, which was published by GTA company Rockstar Games, starred Mad Men actor Aaron Staton as the lead character, Cole Phelps. A writer on the game has now revealed that a different Mad Men actor, Jon Hamm, was considered for the role as well. Staton portrayed Ken Cosgrove on Mad Men, with Hamm playing the show’s leading role, Don Draper.
Daniel McMahon told IGN that Mad Men and LA Noire had the same casting director, and that Hamm was “discussed as a possibility for the role of Cole Phelps.”
“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,” McMahon said.
McMahon went on to say that Staton was “much better at portraying Cole’s fragility.”
“He’s very smart, but he’s also young, not very experienced, and he’s just trying his best. So, I think Jon Hamm would’ve been incredible, but expensive, and probably, in the end, not as good casting for that character as Aaron Staton was,” he explained.
LA Noire was developed by Team Bondi, and it never got a sequel. Earlier this year, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said the company is considering future projects for all of its franchises, and that includes LA Noire.
LA Noire was developed by Team Bondi and released in 2011 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, with Rockstar publishing it. The game takes place in 1947 Los Angeles, with players taking on the role of the detective Cole Phelps, who is played by Mad Men’s Aaron Staton. The game came to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in 2017. A VR edition called The Case Files came out in 2019.
For his part, Staton said in 2021 that he had “never heard a word” about a sequel to LA Noire, despite the game selling millions of copies.
Back in 2012, Rockstar said a sequel to LA Noire was a “possibility.” At the time, the developer said, “We don’t always rush to make sequels, but that does not mean we won’t get to them eventually. We have so many games we want to make and the issue is always one of bandwidth and timing.”
If a sequel comes to market, it wouldn’t be from Team Bondi, as the studio shut down amid a flurry of controversy, after accusations of hostile working conditions prompted the International Game Developers Association to launch an investigation into the developer. Additionally, when the developer shut down, it reportedly was $1.4 million in debt. The studio’s assets, including its next project, Whore of the Orient, were acquired by film production company Kennedy Miller Mitchell.
