Drugs and mug shots are often
associated with young Hollywood actors these days, but for one of The Social
Network stars Armie Hammer — a young movie talent who spent six of his early
formative years in Cayman — it’s just the opposite.
Hammer has acted in several
successful television shows — Gossip Girl and Desperate Housewives. He’s hit the international movie star level
with the recent release of The Social Network, which purports to tell the story
behind the creation of Facebook.
In a phone interview, Hammer is
especially articulate, with a confident and commanding voice, very reminiscent
of a young Brendan Fraser. On screen, he naturally draws your attention, a star
quality that he combines with outstanding performances.
Just 24, he has already worked with
the one of the great modern cinema minds, David Fincher, the director of Seven
and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button.
Hammer had wanted to work with Fincher since he saw Fight Club (1999).
“He is really that consummate
visual director,” he said. “He’s
peerless in that regard.”
In The Social Network, written by
Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men; The American President; The West Wing), Hammer
said he was honoured to have been able to work with such a creative force.
“He’s just a genius,” he said of
Sorkin. “And not only did I get to say
his words, but I got to do it twice.”
Hammer has two roles in The Social
Network, playing the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, by means of a new
digital technology. It works like this: Hammer would portray one of the twins
with a stand-in performer in the scene.
Then he would portray the other Winklevoss twin, with his face digitally
and seamlessly inserted in post-production.
Hammer isn’t working on another
film quite yet; he is in New York promoting The Social Network, something he’ll
be doing until awards season in February.
The promotional tour for the film
is a far cry from his childhood years, many of which he spent on Grand Cayman.
Hammer moved to the island with his
parents when he was seven, a move — according to one website that was made
after his father saw the movie The Firm.
He said that his Cayman experience here as a child was wonderful.
“I never played video games as a
kid. We used to take our machetes and
cut up the mangroves and make forts out of them,” he said. “It was the best. Those are the years you really remember.”
Hammer used to visit the old Blue
Parrott in South Sound for what he recalls as the best conch fritters on island
(the restaurant was destroyed by Hurricane Michelle in 2001).
He used to live near the old Yacht
Club in Seven Mile Beach in a neighbourhood with only two houses.
“I would drive the golf cart around
and get stopped the police, and they would just tell me to go home,” he
said. “It’s so busy there now.”
His parents, Michael and Dru,
opened Grace Christian Academy on Grand Cayman to give Armie and other Caymanian
children another education option and opportunity.
“They saw the need, so they started
this great little school,” he said. “It
started with just six kids, then six became eight…”
The school grew to become a member
of the Association of Christian Schools International. Although the original principal and founding
members aren’t involved now, and Hurricane Ivan temporarily shut it down, the
school still serves the island today.
Hammer stayed in Cayman until he
was 13, and then moved with his family to Los Angeles, a move that would help
launch his career.
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