So, Is Armie Hammer Going to be a Full Fledged Movie Star, or What?

Cafe Society
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Note: by “Movie Star”, I mean a STAR! A big name celebrity FAMOUS for his acting career.

I don’t just mean “a successful working actor”. He’s certainly already a successful working actor, has been for years. He’s got a career that the vast majority of actors would envy.

The way he managed to get significant face time during the Oscars broadcast had me thinking, “Yup, someone is trying to set this guy up to launch as a legitimate movie star.” Yeah, he was in an Oscar nominated movie this past year but he himself wasn’t nominated. He was certainly better featured during the broadcast than was his co-star who actually was nominated.

I absolutely think he is a talented actor but… he’s kind of bland and forgettable. A week ago, I was on a flight and the guy across the aisle from me was watching a movie on his laptop. The movie was Free Fire which I had seen in the theater and I very much enjoyed it- I definitely considered it a memorable movie. As I looked at the screen of this guy’s laptop, Armie Hammer showed up and I thought, “Oh yeah, Armie Hammer was in this movie.” He actually had one of the major roles AND he was quite good in it but still I completely forgot that he was in the movie. I didn’t forget that Brie Larson was in it. I didn’t forget that Sharlto Copely was in it. I didn’t forget that Cillian Murphy was in it. Hell, I even remembered that Noah Taylor was in it!

Looking at his credits from the past few years, I definitely saw and remember The Birth of a Nation but totally forgot that he was in it (he had a MAJOR supporting role). I saw Nocturnal Animals, found it to be a memorable movie, totally forgot he was in it.

I thought he gave a good performance in Call Me By Your Name but I mostly just went to that movie to piss off James Woods. I don’t expect his performance to really stick with me.

His good looks are a lot like his acting. He is a talented actor but kind of bland and forgettable and, in the same way, he is a very attractive man… in kind of a bland and forgettable way. His good looks are too “perfect”. He’s basically what you would get if you fed ten million pictures of handsome white men into a computer and then had the computer create a perfectly handsome man.

I don’t know if he personally wants to be a household name. Perhaps, he’s perfectly happy and entirely appreciative of the steady respectable career he’s established. But I did get the idea that he’s been being sold to us recently and I just wonder whether or not that’s really going to happen.

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Well, someone has been trying for about 8 years now. Guess we’ll see.

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I could believe this. Sometimes actors are pushed into being a star, or convinced by ego-stroking sycophants that they ought to be a star, against their own wishes. Maybe that’s what’s happening here, sort of beyond his control or without his knowledge.

I am kind of anticipating that the current star system we have (different to the studio star system we had fifty years ago) is nearing its end. The guarantee of certain level names “opening” a movie is becoming less reliable or predictable, and outside of Disney/Marvel/Universal/Warners, budgets also can’t realistically afford to pay the multi-millions that level of stardom demands anymore. The medium budget movies are made on TV now and many big name actors of yesteryear are desperate for those roles, even with heavily reduced paypackets.

Steady good quality work is more appealing than huge bank balances, and I think that will inevitably become the norm.

(I also agree with your assessment of Armie Hammer - bland, forgettable, but a nice guy with a decent amount of talent)

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That’s what I would have said about Tom Hanks a few years back.

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Or Brendan Fraser, frankly. Whom I, admittedly, like in a lot of his roles.

In terms of Hammer? He’s certainly being given the opportunity to become a big star. Apart from his smaller films that are thought well of - Birth of a Nation, Call Me By Your Name and so forth - he’s been lead and supporting in some big budget films - Lone Ranger, Man from UNCLE and so forth - that haven’t performed well. But he is getting the parts.

It’ll be interesting to see how he does. He’s getting some real media attention. His profile is Vanity Fairmade him seem much more interesting than I would have expected.

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Who?

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Hasn’t Armie Hammer been a household name for like, a hundred years already?

ducks and runs

But seriously, what does “I thought he gave a good performance in Call Me By Your Name but I mostly just went to that movie to piss off James Woods” mean?

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Probably has something to do with this Twitter exchange

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I get Armie Hammer confused with Jon Hamm.

Speaking of Hamm, I thought he was supposed to become a big star too. But now I only see him in a bunch of H&R Block ads on TV. That doesn’t suggest much of an upward career trajectory.

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Arm & Hammer. That guy who makes your fridge smell go away.

Hamm has the unfortunate circumstance of being so identified with a memorable character in an almost universally adored show that it will be difficult for him to get other roles. He’s done well in non-Don Draper-esque roles such as in Baby Driver (arguably the best part of that film besides the stunt driving) but it’s going to be hard to see him as, say, President, without thinking, “Man, Don Draper really scammed…oh, wait, he’s supposed to be someone else.”

Stranger

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Ha! I suppose that may not have been common knowledge but Skara_Brae gives the correct explanation. James Woods was being a complete asshole about this movie on social media and various other fora for public statements. He kept going on about the horrible homosexual pedophiles who want to take our children.

That’s not actually the real reason why I saw the movie but I do giggle a bit at how James Woods’ outrage only served to better promote the film (while at the same time he opened himself up to criticism for his penchant for underage girls).
On other more Armie Hammer related news, since first posting this Thread I ended up seeing the new Stanley Tucci directed movie Final Portrait which features Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer as the two leads. It’s quite a good movie and Hammer gives an excellent performance that I look forward to rediscovering every time I inevitably forget about it.
(Also, Tony Shaloub is a chameleon in an important supporting role- I had no idea it was him until the credits!)

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Armie Hammer has had a ton of press on why he was supposed to be The Next Big Thing and has been crapping out for years. Maybe he just doesn’t have the ‘it’ factor.

Look at poor Channing Tatum, or whatever his name is. He has in the past been the subject of breathless articles proclaiming him to be The. Next. Big. Thing. Hundreds of projects lined up! Lookit those ABS on the man, Jesus! Lookit his hot wife, married for 9 fucking years! He is the new Clark Gable…

The man is a potato. He has a potato head. Sticky out ears, little beady eyes, forgettable face. My daughter says she can’t ever remember what he looks like or what he was in - some man-stripper movie? She says he has ‘generic man face’. Forgettable in every way, and that includes his supposedly awesome acting. Meh. :stuck_out_tongue:

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He killed it in Foxcatcher. I don’t know if he was just playing himself, or what, but even if he was, it’s a skill to be able to take directions and do all the other things that actors need to do, and translate that natural persona into a believable role. Whatever the case, it worked really well.

ORNITHOLOGIST PHILATELIST PHILANTHROPIST!

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I’m kind of meh about Channing Tatum too, but his song-and-dance number in Hail Caesar! was a hoot.

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I’m not saying Channing Tatum is totally untalented, he probably does have the occasional triumph. He’s not to my taste, but I can see he would have admirers. The thing is, he isn’t killing it in any major roles, or appearing in any major movies, and the way a couple years ago he was being pushed pushed pushed as THE savior of Hollywood! :eek: A mystery! He simply isn’t star material… I suppose he could be cast in some comic book movie and go down in history as the greatest Batman or Spiderman or Superman ever.

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I find that Hollywood rarely actually predicts the next big thing accurately. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was supposed to be the next big thing in the 90s. He did Home Improvement and a few movies (none that were really that huge, except Lion King), then disappeared. Except for his beautiful lips, I don’t really remember much that made him stand out.

But Jack Black, for example, became a big thing and no one was predicting his success when he was in Cable Guy or Demolition Man. There was a little buzz around him in High Fidelity, sure. But he became huge. (Whether you like him or not, he is unique. He is unforgettable. He is famous.)

In general, I’ve stopped paying attention to who is supposed to be the next big thing. They’re only right about as often as weathermen, and sometimes they can only call it after they’ve seen it.

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It’s very hit or miss. There are some actors who seem to be on an upward trajectory whose career is derailed by one or more poorly reviewed or poorly performing movies.

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He did pretty well in the 21/22 Jump Street movies. Good solid comedy where he doesn’t take himself too seriously, so it works out well.

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Bumped.

He’s had some, er, career setbacks in the last five years, I think it’s fair to say.