Armand Douglas Hammer (born August 28, 1986) is an American actor. He began his acting career with guest appearances in several television series. His first leading role was as Billy Graham in the 2008 film Billy: The Early Years and Hammer gained wider recognition for portraying the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's biopic The Social Network (2010).
In 2021, multiple women came forward with claims of abuse against Hammer.[1][2][3] Hammer denied the allegations, which derailed his acting career: he abandoned several future projects and was dropped by his talent agency and publicist.[2][4] After an investigation into Hammer by the LA County District Attorney and the LAPD,[5] they declined to pursue criminal charges against him, citing insufficient evidence.[6] Hammer returned to acting in 2024.
Early life and background
Armand Douglas Hammer was born on August 28, 1986, in Santa Monica, California.[7][8] His mother, Dru Ann (née Mobley), is a former bank loan officer,[9] and his father, Michael Armand Hammer, owned several businesses, including Knoedler Publishing and Armand Hammer Productions, a film/television production company.[10] He has a younger brother, Viktor, named after their great-granduncle Victor Hammer.[11]
Hammer resided in Highland Park, Texas, an affluent town in the Dallas area, for several years. When he was seven, his family moved to the Cayman Islands, where they lived for five years, and then settled in Los Angeles.[21][22] While residing in the Cayman Islands,[23] he attended Faulkner's Academy in Governor's Harbour and Grace Christian Academy (a school founded by his father) in West Bay, Grand Cayman. As a teen, he attended Los Angeles Baptist High School in the San Fernando Valley. He dropped out of high school in eleventh grade to pursue an acting career. However, he subsequently took college courses at UCLA.[22] Hammer said his parents disowned him when he decided to leave school and take up acting but later became supportive and proud of his work.[24]
Career
2005–2015: Early work and breakthrough
Hammer's professional acting career began with small guest appearances in the television series Arrested Development, Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, Reaper and Desperate Housewives. His first ventures into film began with a minor role in the 2006 film Flicka, as well as co-starring in a 2008 psychological thriller, Blackout. His first leading role in film came with his portrayal of the Christian evangelist Billy Graham in Billy: The Early Years, which premiered in October 2008.[15] The film garnered Hammer a "Faith and Values Award" nomination in the Grace Award category, which is awarded for the Most Inspiring Performance in Movie or Television by Mediaguide, an organization that provides movie reviews from a Christian perspective.[25]
In 2010 Hammer's breakthrough film role was in David Fincher's The Social Network, about the creation of Facebook. He portrayed the identical twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, with actor Josh Pence serving as a body double during filming. The filmmakers utilized computer-generated imagery during post-production to superimpose Hammer's face over Pence's as well as the use of split-screen photography in certain scenes. In preparation for the film, Hammer stated that he had to learn how to row on both sides of a boat in order to play the twins, who are rowing champions.[28] Hammer and Pence also went through 10 months of extensive twin boot camp in preparation for their roles, in order to "drill the subtle movements and speech patterns that the Winklevosses would have developed over two decades of genetic equality."[29] This film earned Hammer his first critical plaudits, with Richard Corliss of Time magazine remarking that Hammer's portrayal of the twins was "an astonishingly subtle trompe l'oeil of special effects".[30] For his role in the film, Hammer won Toronto Film Critics Association Awards for Best Supporting Actor.[31]
His next role was that of the first associate director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson, in Clint Eastwood's 2011 film J. Edgar. The biographical drama, written by Dustin Lance Black, focused on the expansive career of J. Edgar Hoover, of which the titular role was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. The acting was largely praised, with David Denby of The New Yorker calling Hammer's performance "charming", and The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy describing it as "excellent".[32] McCarthy goes on further in his review to particularly praise the chemistry between DiCaprio and Hammer, specifically in their depiction of the often speculated romantic relationship between their characters, pointing out that, "...the way the homoerotic undertones and impulses are handled is one of the best things about the film; the emotional dynamics, given all the social and political factors at play, feel entirely credible, and DiCaprio and Hammer excel during the exchanges of innuendo, covert desire, recriminations and mutual understanding."[33] Despite this, the film received mixed reviews overall, in part due to the direction and writing, as well as pointed criticism of the makeup used to age DiCaprio and Hammer's characters.[34] Both actors received Screen Actors Guild Awards nods.[35]
The following year, Hammer played Sam Turner in the 2016 film The Birth of a Nation, directed by Nate Parker.[41] The film, which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival, won both the Audience Award and Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. In January 2016, it was revealed that since 2013,[42] Hammer was in contact with the family of the infamous drug lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal and secured the rights to film the life story of the cartel leader.[43] He then had a role in the ensemble of Tom Ford's psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals,[44] played Ord in the action film Free Fire, which was written and directed by Ben Wheatley,[45] and played U.S. Marine Mike Stevens, in Mine.[46]
In the same year, he voiced Jackson Storm, the main antagonist, in Disney-Pixar's animated film Cars 3, as well as starred alongside Geoffrey Rush in Stanley Tucci'sFinal Portrait. The film premiered at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival and received a theatrical release the following year by Sony Pictures Classics to favorable reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Variety magazine praised Hammer's ability to "suggest turbulent eddies of thought beneath the blondish Clark Kent looks and preppie manners."[51]The Village Voice critic found the performances "uniformly strong" and cited Hammer's portrayal of American author James Lord as the "comic highlight".[52]
In 2021, Hammer both dropped out of and was dropped from a number of acting productions in development in the wake of sexual and emotional abuse allegations, including a sexual assault investigation.[68] Hammer dropped out of the film Shotgun Wedding[69][70][71] and his leading role in the Paramount+ drama miniseries The Offer,[72][73] stepped away from the Starz series Gaslit[74] and the Broadway play The Minutes,[75] and was removed from Billion Dollar Spy.[76] Talent agency William Morris Endeavor dropped Hammer as a client,[77] and it was reported that his publicist would no longer represent him.[78] In December 2021, it was revealed his role in the Taika Waititi film Next Goal Wins had been reshot, with Will Arnett taking over Hammer's role.[79]
After a hiatus, Hammer will make his acting comeback with the western film Frontier Crucible.[80][81]
Personal life
In May 2010, Hammer married television personality Elizabeth Chambers.[82] Hammer's friend, artist Tyler Ramsey, introduced the pair.[83] They have two children.[84][85]
In 2011, Hammer was arrested at a United States Border Patrol checkpoint in West Texas after marijuana was discovered in his car. El Paso's attorney declined to prosecute the case, as the amount of marijuana Hammer had would only amount to a misdemeanor.[86] In 2013, Hammer said the arrest "was a misunderstanding of laws [between] interstate laws versus state laws and apparently federal laws supersede state laws".[87]
On July 10, 2020, Hammer and Chambers announced their separation via Instagram.[88] In 2022, Hammer was living in the Cayman Islands to be near Chambers and their children. He held several jobs in the Cayman Islands, including selling timeshares and as a manager for an apartment complex.[89] In June 2023, it was announced that Hammer and Chambers had reached a divorce settlement.[90] In 2024, Hammer moved to Los Angeles after being refused subsequent work permits in the Cayman Islands. He later claimed to be in a "bad financial state", resulting from limited acting work following his abuse allegations and lacking access to his family's fortune.[91][92]
In 2023, Hammer alleged he was sexually assaulted at age 13 by a youth pastor.[93] He later said he attempted suicide following his abuse allegations.
Abuse allegations
In January 2021, an anonymous Instagram account published screenshots of sexually-charged text messages it claimed Hammer had sent to various women.[94] Hammer denied the validity of the text messages, calling them an "online attack",[94] and later claimed his legal team were unsuccessful delivering a subpoena to Meta for messaging records related to the accusations.[95][96][97][98] That same month, the Cayman police spoke to Hammer about leaked videos in which he stated he had sex with "Miss Cayman" in the Cayman Islands.[99] He later apologized to the Cayman Compass, clarifying the woman he referred to in the videos was not associated with the Miss Cayman Islands beauty pageant.[100][101]
Two months later, Hammer's ex-girlfriend, Efrosina Angelova, came forward as the owner of the Instagram account and accused Hammer of raping her in April 2017.[102][2] Two other women then alleged abuse by Hammer in Page Six: Courtney Vucekovich claimed he subjected her to emotional abuse, expressed a desire to cook and eat one of her ribs, and that she attended a hospitalization program for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following the relationship.[103] Paige Lorenze claimed Hammer "branded her, purposefully left her covered in bruises, and talked about 'consuming her'".[104] In response, Hammer's legal team stated "the assertions about Mr. Hammer are patently untrue. Any interactions with any partner of his were completely consensual in that they were fully discussed, agreed upon, and mutually participatory".[68] After the allegations were made, Hammer was removed from a number of film projects and dropped out of others himself.[102]
In March 2021, the LAPD launched an investigation into the accusations, which concluded that December.[102] In May 2023, the LA County District Attorney declined to indict Hammer, citing insufficient evidence.[5][105][6] In an interview published a year prior, Hammer's attorney, Andrew Brettler, stated, "There was never a case, never a lawsuit, never a criminal proceeding against anyone. It captured the public's attention but was completely blown out of proportion. There wasn't any matter for me to handle other than to help him manage his image in the press".[106] In September 2022, it was revealed that attorney Gloria Allred refused to represent Angelova after she "wouldn't sign a declaration under perjury [regarding] her accusations".[107] The allegations feature in the 2022 documentary miniseries House of Hammer.[108]
In February 2023, Air Mail published "Armie Hammer Breaks His Silence", in which reporter James Kirchick questioned the details of the allegations.[109] In an interview by Kirchick, Hammer said he engaged in consensual BDSM and admitted to being emotionally abusive in his relationships with the accusers.[110] In July 2024, Hammer's mother, Dru Ann, published the book Hammered, where she addressed the allegations.[111] Hammer was interviewed on Piers Morgan Uncensored that month, addressing the allegations and his life changes following them.[112]
^"2010 WAFCA Awards". WAFCA.com. The Washington DC Area Film Critics Association. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved February 19, 2019.
^"2017 Austin Film Award Nominees". austinfilmcritics.org. Austin Film Critics Association. December 18, 2017. Archived from the original on March 4, 2022. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
^"2017 Awards (21st Annual)". ofcs.org. Online Film Critics Society. March 6, 2018. Archived from the original on December 28, 2016. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
^"2017 Nominees". phxcritics.com. Phoenix Critics Circle. Archived from the original on February 20, 2019. Retrieved February 20, 2019.