Armie Hammer lashes out at Casey Affleck's Oscar win after sexual harassment accusations: 'It just doesn't make sense'
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- Armie Hammer may have missed out on an Oscar nomination for "The Birth of a Nation" because of a controversy surrounding director Nate Parker.
- Parker was charged with rape when he was a college student, but was later acquitted.
- For the 2017 Oscars, Casey Affleck won the best actor award despite two sexual harassment allegations. Both cases were settled.
- Hammer said there's a double standard between how the Oscars handled Parker compared to Affleck.
For the 2017 Oscars, Armie Hammer was supposed to be a contender.
He co-starred in "The Birth of a Nation," a slave revolt epic that was billed as an instant Oscar fronrunner when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2016. Things changed later that year when the news came out that director Nate Parker was charged with rape while he was a student at Penn State. Parker was acquitted by a jury in 2001, but the aftermath of the case, a mishandled "60 Minutes" interview, and a wave of bad reviews sunk the movie's chances.
While Hammer doesn't defend Parker outright, he told The Hollywood Reporter he found it strange that Parker was "in director's jail" for something that happened when he was 19 years old. At the same time, Casey Affleck — who settled two sexual harassment lawsuits seven years ago — ended up winning an Oscar for best actor.
"[Parker] had one incident — which was heinous and atrocious — but his entire life is affected in the worst possible way," Hammer said. "And the other guy won the highest award you can get as an actor. It just doesn't make sense."
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In 2010, Affleck was sued by two women who worked on the set of the film "I'm Still Here." According to their lawsuits, Affleck allegedly snuck into one woman's bedroom while she was asleep and allegedly asked a crew member to take off his pants so he could show another woman his penis, among other inappropriate behavior. The lawsuits were settled in 2010 and Affleck has seldom directly addressed them, citing the terms of the settlements.
None of the allegations stopped the Academy for Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from giving him an Oscar for best actor for his performance in "Manchester by the Sea." Following the Harvey Weinstein scandal earlier in 2017, and because Affleck is expected to be invited as a presenter for the 2018 Oscars, there's been renewed attention paid to the case.
Hammer said that while the allegations against Parker may have been worse than the allegations against Affleck, there was still a double standard about how the two were treated by Hollywood.
"I'm not saying Nate should not have been in trouble. I'm saying that they got in different levels of trouble," Hammer said. "That's the disparity. It's like there are two standards for how to deal with someone who has this kind of issue in their past, you know?"
Though Hammer didn't specifically mention race in his comments to The Hollywood Reporter, others have talked about the double standard for how Parker, who's black, was treated differently from Affleck.
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Hammer — who is starring this year in "Call Me By Your Name," which is expected to be nominated for multiple Oscars — also said he thinks the story against Parker was "orchestrated" in the press by someone who was competing against "The Birth of a Nation." He believes he was invited to the Academy this year "largely because of the way the 'Birth of a Nation' thing was handled."
"There was another person in the industry, who had a competing film for the Academy Awards, who decided to release all of the phone records and information," Hammer said. "I've been told who did it — by several people."
Instead of attending the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre, Hammer watched it at home from his couch. He was delighted that "Moonlight" beat "La La Land" for best picture.
"I don't think I've ever laughed so hard," Hammer said. "I literally stood up off my couch and applauded — in a schadenfreude way."
A representative for Affleck didn't immediately respond to INSIDER's request for comment on Hammer's statements.
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