Armie Hammer has returned to public life of late after claims of cannibalism, sexual misconduct and rape upended his career. Although he has yet to land studio work following the controversy, one former collaborator is sharing support for the actor.
Director Tarsem Singh, who cast Hammer as the prince opposite Lily Collins’ Snow White and Julia Roberts’ evil queen in the 2012 film Mirror Mirror, tells The Hollywood Reporter that he continues to be a fan of Hammer’s work and does not feel that the headlines around the star’s personal life should impact his career.
“I love Armie Hammer,” Singh says. “I hope all this crap goes away on what adults do in their own spare time, and if everybody’s a consensual adult, I’m OK.” (The director notes that he does not know “all the background” on the allegations against Hammer.)
Singh explains that he had not seen Hammer’s breakout performance in the 2010 film The Social Network, in which the actor performed a dual role as the Winklevoss twins, but that he spoke to its director, David Fincher, about Hammer’s performance. Singh remembers meeting with Hammer just once before casting him in Mirror Mirror, which reimagines the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Snow White, and that there was no other strong competition for the role.
“I met him with him personally, and I just said, ‘He’s funny. He’s witty. I love him,’” the Immortals director says enthusiastically. “He was perfect for me.”
Singh adds that Hammer at the time had been attached to star opposite Johnny Depp in the title role for Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger. That film had initially been slated to shoot in 2011, around the same time as Mirror Mirror, but Disney delayed the start of production on The Lone Ranger amid concerns about the budget. The Lone Ranger shot in 2012 before hitting theaters in 2013, and it was a critical and commercial disappointment.
“That time had been really bad for him,” says Singh, who maintains that The Lone Ranger got a bad rap. “The Lone Ranger, which I love, had just gotten pushed. It’s not a film that everybody wants to say that they like. Somehow it’s a bad thing. I love the director, and I thought that film worked very well. It just wasn’t the right film at the right time, and some scenes were longer than others.”
Hammer’s career took a hit after a number of sexual misconduct allegations surfaced in 2021, leading the actor to get dropped by agency WME and replaced in multiple projects. (Hammer has stated that the relationships were consensual but admitted he was emotionally abusive to the women.) He announced the launch of his podcast Armie HammerTime late last year and said in a recent interview that he has been turning down acting work due to his busy schedule. Hammer is set to co-star with Thomas Jane in the indie Western feature Frontier Crucible.
When asked about Disney’s new Snow White and the continued scrutiny over stars Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot and their personal feelings about politics and other topics, Singh explains that he empathizes with performers who are in the spotlight. But he also notes that individuals sometimes bring the attention upon themselves with their social media presence.
“Everything that you breathe and say is so scrutinized,” Singh says. “Those poor guys, I don’t know what kind of life they live in, and also they all have such a social media presence. I just always go, I would have been canceled long before anything started because I don’t have Twitter, I don’t have Instagram, I don’t have Facebook. I just talk too much shit for that stuff.”
Singh also discusses the fact that stars’ previous posts can resurface to cause debate. The comments follow an Oscar season dominated by controversy over years-old resurfaced tweets from Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón.
“These poor actors, they come out and not only are you cross-examined then, but in retrospect they’ll just look back on a whole bunch of stuff because when you were young and stupid, you didn’t think any of that stuff was going to matter, and guess what?” the filmmaker says. “It does now. I just could have never held it back. But fortunately for me, I just knew that I’m not cut out for doing that kind of internet stuff. It just bores me. It’s such a double-edged sword that they want the followers, and at the same time, when you put any of your DNA out there, and it’s not liked, it’s going to suddenly retrospectively get examined.”
Read the full article here
