Boy, Armie Hammer is having quite a week. The actor, who is set to star in the upcoming, buzzworthy film, Call Me by Your Name, was shoved in the spotlight last week and it keeps getting interesting, first starting with an article from Buzzfeed. The article, published on the site on November 27th and lovingly titled, “Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen,” put a lot of the actor’s career into perspective while not straying away from questioning whether or not Hammer is really something special in Hollywood.
Writer Anne Helen Peterson did not hold back any punches towards Hammer or Hollywood as a whole. Peterson makes it a point to show that Hammer is not extraordinary in anyway and could just be lacking a niche; but, thanks to the fact that he is, “…simply a beautiful, pedigreed white man,” he is allowed time and time again to make attempts at finding what he’s good at. Even if it flops. After all, it does raise an eyebrow that Hammer has not had a commercially-successful or critically-acclaimed film since The Social Network, where he was cast in the duo role of the Winklevoss twins, after having tiny roles in shows like “Desperate Housewives.” Yet he still seems to be…here.
Harsh, isn’t it? Hammer definitely thinks so. Immediately after the article’s publication, Hammer took to his Twitter account to send a response to the backlash it was creating in the midst of the “hype” he was getting thanks to his new movie and how it was bringing in attention and new fans. Hammer wrote, “Your chronology is spot on but your perspective is bitter [as f*ck]. Maybe I’m just a guy who loves his job and refuses to do anything but what he loves to do…?”
As social media does, this made its rounds all over the website and onto other platforms, primarily Tumblr and Facebook, so to fight back anymore criticism, Armie Hammer deleted his account.
The end.
Except it isn’t.
Oh, Armand. Learn to keep the mouth closed.
Literally two days after the Twitter drama, Hammer joined MTV’s Josh Horowitz on his pop culture podcast, “Happy Sad Confused,” to talk Call Me by Your Name and the falls of his past projects (such as The Lone Ranger and Birth of a Nation) for being controversial. It should be known that Call Me by Your Name has been received with furrowed brows despite some positive reviews because of the lack of gay actors in gay roles, as well as the significant age difference between the main characters who are romantically involved- something that makes a lot of people rightfully uncomfortable and an understandable reason for debate, especially in the recent (and on-going) news of people in the Hollywood elite beyond sexually harassing or taking advantage of those younger than them as a show of power and control.
Hammer has knowingly defended the nature of the film in interviews but, as saying the wrong thing goes, it really got worse.
Close to the end of his interview with Horowitz, Hammer was asked if after all the dubious debate surrounding his other movies due to their involvement with those who have been, in the last five years, accused of abuse (such as Johnny Depp), he would consider working with the infamous Roman Polanski on a project.
His answer could create audible sighs from the west coast to the east.
Hammer insisted that he could “separate art from the artist,” siting Polanski as a great artist, and that, “…I’m working with him as an artist and this is a new thing that he’s doing and I think that he is a talented artist or whatever. But at the end of the day, like, as a human, and as someone who’s trying to live a virtuous life, you kind of go “Is it worth it?” because you know there’s going to be drama. You know it’s going to be something that can overshadow what you’re actually trying to do.”
If only it was that easy for everyone else.
I can’t say, personally, that it would be great if Armie Hammer could learn his lesson because he is an adult man, after all, and the last couple of months have shown that outing faith in celebrities may not be a good idea for anyone.
But let’s see if this is the career boost that Hammer has been waiting for and the gold star reviews steer him in the right direction.
After all, he is making his Broadway debut this summer in a play. Oh, and it’s title? Straight White Men.
Irony.