Armie Hammer Apologizes to Casey Affleck
Armie Hammer recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his (excellent) new movie (seriously, I'm still crying), Call Me By My Name, and in the interview, he made some contentious comments about how actor Casey Affleck and director Nate Parker were treated during last year’s Oscar cycle.
For context, Hammer co-starred in Parker’s Birth of a Nation, which was an awards favorite until the director's college rape case made it into the news.
“Nate had the stuff in his past, which is heinous and tough to get beyond. I get that,” he said at the time. “But that was when he was 18, and now he’s in directors jail. At the same time, the guy who went and won an Academy Award has three cases of sexual assault against him.”
He clarified that the "guy" he was talking about is Casey Affeck: “[Parker] had one incident - which was heinous and atrocious - but his entire life is affected in the worst possible way. And the other guy won the highest award you can get as an actor. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Hammer added at Birth of a Nation's bad press was “orchestrated for sure” by people behind a competing film.
As Vulture points out, the issue with Hammer's comments is that the two cases are different - Casey Affleck was accused of sexual harassment, not sexual assault. His case was settled out of court. Nate Parker was tried and acquitted.
Hammer has now issued an apology statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
“I would like to sincerely apologize to Casey and his family for my recent comments about him in my THR interview,” he said. “Without knowing the facts about the civil lawsuits at issue (which I now understand were settled), I misspoke. I conflated sexual harassment cases with a criminal case involving sexual assault charges.”
Read the full statement below:
I would like to sincerely apologize to Casey and his family for my recent comments about him in my THR interview. Without knowing the facts about the civil lawsuits at issue (which I now understand were settled), I misspoke. I conflated sexual harassment cases with a criminal case involving sexual assault charges. The cases in which Casey was involved were not criminal and instead involved civil claims from his 2010 movie I’m Still Here. While intending to make a social comment about double standards in general, I mistakenly compared reports of prior, public civil allegations that never proceeded to trial with a criminal case that was fully tried. I understand now that this was a poor comparison, which I deeply regret making. I also didn’t mean to insinuate, nor do I believe, that Casey or anyone from his camp had anything to do with leaked information that took place during the press for “Birth of a Nation.” I respect Casey’s work, and I’ve learned a valuable lesson about the need to be more accurate with disseminating information, especially in this age of instantaneous, unchecked communication. While attempting to be part of the solution, I unintentionally made myself part of the problem, for which I am truly sorry.
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