Jon Hamm was 'very, very scared' to host “SNL” for the first time: 'Don't trip'

"It's a roller coaster ride," Hamm says. "You just have to hold on and not fall out of the car."

Jon Hamm has hosted Saturday Night Live three times, but he'll never forget how terrified he felt before walking out onstage for his first time.

The Landman star reminisced with Jimmy Fallon about his first time hosting SNL on Sunday’s episode of The Tonight Show, and he revealed what got him through those pre-show nerves.

"I remember being very, very scared up until about 10 seconds before you go out the door," Hamm said. "And [stage manager] Gena Rositano's back there counting you down, screaming in your ear, and you're looking at a tiny screen, and your back is up against the wall, and you have to walk down the steps. 'Don't trip,' that's all I was thinking about."

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As the chaos unfolded around him backstage in those final moments on on Oct. 25, 2008, he remembered the epiphany he had that made it all better.

"At a certain point, literally as the band is playing, and it's so loud, and you can't hear anything, and Gena's like, '5, 4 ... ' and I go, 'Oh wait, it's a ride. It's a roller coaster ride. You just have to hold on and not fall out of the car,'" the former Mad Men star said. "And that was what [made me realize], 'Oh okay, this will be fine.' And then it was awesome. It was the greatest 90 minutes of your life."

Hamm and Fallon both agreed that the live shows go by so fast.

"It goes by like it's 45 seconds," Hamm said. "You look down, you look up, it's 'Update,' you look down again and you're at goodnights, and you're like, 'Oh my god, what happened? Let's do it one more time.' The good news is, you get a chance to do it twice — you do dress [rehearsal] and air. It was just the best. So exhilarating."

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Watch Hamm's interview below:

This isn't the first time Hamm has spoken about the shenanigans surrounding his first time hosting. He recently looked back on his first time hosting SNL earlier this year with Kristen Wiig, who was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series at the time.

"On Monday, when you come in as the host, there was a big meeting in Lorne [Michael]'s office," Hamm said in June. "And all the writers are there, and the cast is there, and everybody jams into the small office, and everybody was in Mad Men drag. Which was very strange."

"We never do that," Wiig said. "I don't think we've ever done it since."

Hamm went on, "Bill Hader was in drag. Paula Pell had a cigarette taped to her finger because she didn't know how to smoke. Colin Jost is two years out of Harvard and looks like a total Staten Island dirtbag."

Comedian John Mulaney, who wrote for SNL from 2008 to 2012, has referred to that same backstage prank on social media. "Wait! But on the Monday when Jon Hamm first hosted in October 2008 all of us went to the pitch meeting dressed as Mad Men characters," he wrote. "Then 'as part of the joke' everyone started day drinking. Jon Hamm, new to the show, walked in to be greeted by drunk Comic-Con. It was the best."

Hamm has since hosted the show two more times, as well as many more cameos. In April, he was back in Studio 8H as Wiig received her five-timers jacket for reaching that milestone as host.