Armie hammer

When the actor Armie Hammer looked like he was on the verge of becoming a big star, it was an endless source of amusement for gossip columnists and sarcastic online commenters that he never quite got to the A-list. It wasn’t that he didn’t get the roles; leads in everything from The Lone Ranger to The Man From U.N.C.L.E looked, on paper, as if they should catapult him into the stratosphere. His chiseled good looks and muscular physique seemed to suggest that he had all the ingredients for Hollywood longevity. And he could act, too, as could be seen by his much-acclaimed roles in Call Me By Your Name and his breakthrough part in David Fincher’s The Social Network. But then it all went horribly, bizarrely wrong.

Relive with me and enjoy again the downfall of Armand Douglas Hammer. If you remember, Hammer’s Hollywood career had been going as smoothly as anything: there was his 2010 breakthrough playing the Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, his turn as Leonardo DiCaprio’s no. 2 in Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar, the 2018 Golden Globe for Call Me By Your Name. By 2020 he was a GQ cover star: ‘Soul seeker. Scene stealer. Leading man.’ And cannibal, allegedly. In January 2021 an anonymous Instagram account called @houseofeffie posted screenshots supposedly showing Hammer’s texts to a woman. ‘Thinking of holding your heart in my hand and controlling when it beats,’ the message read. ‘I am 100 per cent a cannibal.

It must seem very strange to Armie Hammer — once a successful, if not quite an A-list actor, who has latterly been reduced to selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands — that his career has taken such a decisive dive into the dumpster. Not very long ago, he was appearing in leading roles in the likes of Death on the Nile and Rebecca, and then his life went into a nosedive because of allegations of everything from cannibalism to sexual abuse. In present-day Hollywood, there is no such thing as a presumption of innocence until guilt is proved, and Hammer was fired from various projects, as well as being dropped by his agency and management company. His days of fame appeared to be over.

Marvel is releasing its latest extravaganza, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, this weekend. Although early reviews have been largely negative and suggest the film is overwrought, it will inevitably make a huge amount of money and begin Marvel’s so-called "Phase 5" in high-profile fashion. Which is why it’s crucial for the publicity machine that its star Evangeline Lilly’s views on the anti-vaxxing debate do not overshadow the film’s more straightforward themes of good, evil and quantumania. Unfortunately, real-world issues are more complex than Marvel might like them to be. Lilly has enjoyed a successful career in films such as The Hobbit and in shows including Lost, and her appearances in the Ant-Man pictures were, until the advent of Covid, entirely uncontroversial.

When someone compiles the history of 21st-century Hollywood, the section devoted to Armie Hammer will be one of the most bizarre. “Handsome leading man, came to prominence playing twins in The Social Network, a film about a forgotten invention known as Facebook. Most of the films he was subsequently cast in flopped, despite often being quite good. Amidst allegations of sexual assault and worse, it was then revealed that he had a cannibalism fetish, and that was the end of his acting career.” Yet canceled Hollywood figures often refuse to stay canceled these days.

Rebecca is a new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s gothic, twisted, never-out-of-print tale of sexual jealousy. It’s directed by Ben Wheatley, with a script by Jane Goldman, and stars Lily James, Armie Hammer and Kristin Scott Thomas. High hopes? Me too. But though it’s perfectly watchable, it’s not at all daring. Would the second Mrs de Winter be more fully formed and less of a pallid, round-shouldered meek little thing? Would sinister Mrs Danvers have more substance? Would it be a modern interpretation for modern times? No, is the short answer. And also it just isn’t sexy enough. Meanwhile, I forgot to start this with: ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…’ as it’s how every other review will begin, I’m sure.