Jon Hamm shares where he first met 'Top Gun: Maverick' co-star Tom Cruise

Jon Hamm is no stranger to period pieces, having occupied the 1960s as Don Draper for Mad Men's acclaimed seven seasons from 2007-15.

The Emmy-winning is now taking aim at '80s nostalgia.

Hamm will co-star with Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick (due Nov. 19), the sequel to 1986 Oscar-winning classic Top Gun, but the two A-listers met before filming.

He explained on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon:

"I had actually met Tom a long time before. I was at a friend's—Jimmy Kimmel's house. He has fun parties, and he was having a football-watching party of a Sunday, as you do, and the rumor got around. You know, 'Somebody said Tom Cruise is coming today.' And everybody's like, 'No, he's not.' It's like, it's a football party. We're all watching football. It's like a bunch of idiots eating pizza and drinking beer. Tom Cruise is not coming to this football party.

"Cut to three minutes later: Tom Cruise walks in with his mom. Mom Cruise. And then cut to the reverse of this, like, 40 dudes just with their jaws on the ground like, 'Is this actually happening?'"

Hamm then showered Cruise with compliments, calling him "inspirational," "the hardest-working guy on set" and "always in a good mood."

Bookending that Cruise anecdote was Hamm's admission that filming for Confess, Fletch—another '80s reboot—will start in Boston on Monday (June 28), and his commentary on the Steven Soderbergh-directed No Sudden Move (arriving July 1) that he co-stars in with the likes of Don Cheadle, Brendan Fraser, David Harbour and Benicio Del Toro.

Watch Hamm's full Tonight Show appearance below.