Background and career
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). Hammer portrayed Clyde Tolson in the biopic J. Edgar (2011), played the titular character in the western The Lone Ranger (2013), and starred as Illya Kuryakin in the action film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015). In 2017, he starred in Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama Call Me by Your Name, for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The following year, Hammer portrayed Martin D. Ginsburg in the biopic On the Basis of Sex (2018). On Broadway, he starred in a production of Straight White Men in 2018. In 2021, Hammer's career was derailed when he was accused of sexual and emotional abuse by three women. He abandoned several projects and was dropped by his talent agency and publicist. Hammer denied all accusations. After an investigation by the Los Angeles County District Attorney (LACDA) and the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), they declined to pursue criminal charges, citing insufficient evidence. He returned to acting in 2025.
Armand Douglas Hammer was born on August 28, 1986, in Santa Monica, California. His mother, Dru Ann (née Mobley), is a former bank loan officer, and his father, Michael Armand Hammer, owned several businesses, including Knoedler Publishing and Armand Hammer Productions, a film/television production company. He has a younger brother, Viktor, named after their great-granduncle Victor Hammer. Hammer has described his background as "half Jewish". His paternal great-grandfather was oil tycoon and philanthropist Armand Hammer, whose parents were Jewish emigrants to the U.S. from the Russian Empire. Armand's father, Julius Hammer, was from Odesa and was an early activist in the Communist Party USA in New York. Armie's paternal great-grandmother was the Russian-born actress and singer Baroness Olga Vadimovna von Root, from Sevastopol, the daughter of a tsarist general. His paternal grandmother was from Texas, while his mother's family is from Tulsa, Oklahoma. 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. While residing in the Cayman Islands, 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. 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.
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. 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.
After a long search, Hammer was hand-picked in 2007 by filmmaker George Miller to star in the planned superhero film Justice League: Mortal, as Bruce Wayne / Batman. The film, which was to be directed by Miller, was eventually canceled. The film's cancellation came in large part due to the looming 2007–08 Writers Guild of America strike as well as stalled budgetary rebate negotiations with the Australian Government. In 2009, he played Harrison Bergeron in 2081, based on the short story of the same name by author Kurt Vonnegut, which premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival. 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. 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." 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'œil of special effects". For his role in the film, Hammer won Toronto Film Critics Association Awards 2010 for Best Supporting Actor. Hammer's 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. While the film received mixed reviews overall, with some pointed criticism of the makeup used to age DiCaprio and Hammer's characters, the acting was largely praised. David Denby of The New Yorker called Hammer's performance "charming", and The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy described it as "excellent". 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, observing 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." DiCaprio and Hammer both received nods at the 18th Screen Actors Guild Awards. In January 2012, Hammer voiced the Winklevoss twins in an episode of The Simpsons titled "The D'oh-cial Network". He also co-starred with Julia Roberts and Lily Collins in Mirror Mirror which was released in the following March, playing Prince Andrew Alcott. The following year, Hammer was cast as the title role of Disney's, The Lone Ranger, alongside Johnny Depp as Tonto, in an adaptation of the radio and film serials of the character of the same name. The film, released theatrically in July 2013, was considered a box office failure, grossing only $260.5 million worldwide on a reported budget of $215 million. In 2015, he starred in director Guy Ritchie's The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a feature film adaptation of the 1960s TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E., playing Illya Kuryakin, opposite Henry Cavill.
Hammer played Sam Turner in the film The Birth of a Nation (2016), directed by Nate Parker. The film, which premiered in competition at the 2016 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, 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. He then had a role in the ensemble of Tom Ford's psychological thriller Nocturnal Animals, played Ord in the action film Free Fire, which was written and directed by Ben Wheatley, and played U.S. Marine Mike Stevens in Mine. In 2017, Hammer starred as Oliver in Call Me by Your Name, starring opposite Timothée Chalamet. The film, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by André Aciman, was directed by Luca Guadagnino. Production began in May 2016, and the film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. For his performance, Hammer received acclaim and nominations for the Critics' Choice Award, the Independent Spirit Award, and the Golden Globe Award in Best Supporting Actor category. Film critic Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair said that Hammer utilized "his ludicrous proportions and chiseled handsomeness to great, surprisingly witty and sensitive effect." Hammer's acclaim was further echoed by Peter Travers; he wrote for Rolling Stone magazine: "a revelation, giving his most complex screen role to date the tightrope thrill of full immersion." Often highlighted was the "ridiculous chemistry" between Hammer and Chalamet, in which Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com found the pairing successful, in part due to Hammer's skill in finding the "tricky balance between the character's swagger and his vulnerability as he gives himself over to this exciting affair." Hammer also narrated the audiobook, which was published by Macmillan Publishers. In the same year, Hammer voiced Jackson Storm, the main antagonist, in Disney-Pixar's animated film Cars 3, as well as starred alongside Geoffrey Rush in director Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait. The film premiered at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival and received a theatrical release the following year in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics to favorable reviews. Owen Gleiberman of Variety praised Hammer's ability to "suggest turbulent eddies of thought beneath the blondish Clark Kent looks and preppie manners." The Village Voice critic found the performances "uniformly strong" and cited Hammer's portrayal of American author James Lord as the "comic highlight".
In 2018, Hammer co-starred in Boots Riley's dark comedy Sorry to Bother You alongside Lakeith Stanfield, Steven Yeun, and Tessa Thompson. Film Journal International critic Tomris Laffly described Hammer's character, Steve Lift, as an "irresistibly funny" and "coke-snorting, abominable villain". The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival on January 20. It won the 2019 National Board of Review's Top Ten Independent Films award and won Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, while also nominated for Best Screenplay, at the 34th Independent Spirit Awards. He then appeared as David in the thriller Hotel Mumbai, about the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The film premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2018. In the same year, Hammer starred alongside Felicity Jones, playing taxation law expert Martin D. Ginsburg, the spouse of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in On the Basis of Sex, a biographical legal drama film based on the life and early cases of Ginsburg, directed by Mimi Leder. It premiered at the AFI Fest on November 8, 2018. In June 2018, Hammer led as Drew in Straight White Men at Second Stage Theater on Broadway. For his notable film works from 2017 to 2018, Hammer was awarded "Outstanding Achievement in Cinema" by The SCAD Savannah Film Festival. In 2019, Hammer starred in Babak Anvari's psychological horror film Wounds alongside Dakota Johnson. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on January 26. In 2020, he starred as Maxim de Winter in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance novel Rebecca, again directed by Wheatley and co-starring Lily James; and in 2021, he appeared with Gary Oldman and Evangeline Lilly in the opioid crisis thriller Crisis. Hammer was also part of an ensemble cast in director Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile. While filmed in 2019, it was released only in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
