Armand Douglas Hammer (born August 28, 1986) is an American actor. Hammer 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 he gained wider recognition for his portrayal of the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss in David Fincher's biographical drama film The Social Network (2010), for which he won the Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Hammer portrayed Clyde Tolson in the biopic J. Edgar (2011), played the title 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 and a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male. The following year, he 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, claims of sexual abuse and cannibalistic fetishism were made against Hammer, including rape, physical and emotional abuse, and sexual violence masquerading as BDSM. Courtney Vucekovich said that he had asked her if she was willing to let him eat one of her ribs. In March 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department stated that he was the subject of a sexual assault investigation. Hammer denied the allegations, calling them an "online attack". He subsequently abandoned several future projects and was dropped by his talent agency and publicist. Following the allegations of abuse in 2021, he disappeared from the public eye and exited all forthcoming projects he had signed on to.
Early life and background :
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, owns 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 Odessa and was an early activist in the U.S. Communist Party 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, near Dallas, 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 become supportive and proud of his work.
