The Best Biographical Films Starring Armie Hammer

Actor Armie Hammer, great-grandson of the legendary oil tycoon, Armand Hammer, is on his way to becoming one of Hollywood’s brightest young stars.  The 28-year-old Los Angeles native made his acting debut in 2005 when he made a brief appearance in an episode of Arrested Development.  However, after dropping out of high school to pursue an acting career, Hammer’s parents threatened to cut him off.  Over the last decade, Hammer has been able to prove that he made the right decision, and has gone on to land several starring film roles including the title role in the 2013 film, The Lone Ranger.  Instead of basking in the glory of his superstardom, Hammer says that he is just thankful to be working.

Thanks to his hard work and dedication to the craft, Hammer has been able to breathe new life into several compelling real life characters.  Here are three of the best biographical films starring Armie Hammer.

3. Billy: The Early Years

With Arnie Hammer playing the film’s title character, the 2008 film, Billy: The Early Years, tells the story of evangelist Billy Graham.  During the 1940s, Graham rose to fame and eventually became the spiritual advisor for several United States presidents including Lyndon B. Johnson who was considered one of Graham’s closest friends. Although Graham has his own film distribution company, World Wide Pictures, the company did not assist in the production of the film and the Graham family was said to have not endorsed the making of the film.  However, even without familial backing, Billy: The Early Years went on to receive many positive reviews. CBN.com’s Chris Carpenter also hailed Hammer’s portrayal of Graham and stated: “Armie Hammer, the great-grandson of noted industrialist Armand Hammer, turns in a credible portrayal as Billy Graham.  While he looks nothing like the young Billy, it is evident that Hammer has worked hard to acquire the mannerisms and preaching style of the legendary evangelist.”

2. The Social Network

The 2010 film, The Social Network, gave viewers an insightful look into the founding of the popular social networking site, Facebook.  In the film, Armie Hammer starred as both Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, identical twin brothers who founded Harvard University’s first social networking platform, HarvardConnection.  In the film, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is approached by the Winklevoss twins to work with them on HarvardConnection.  However, when Zuckerberg comes up with an idea for what he called, Thefacebook, the twins became enraged and took their complaints to school administration.  After no action was taken, and Thefacebook’s popularity began to grow, the Winklevoss twins filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg citing that he had stolen their idea.  For his role in the film, Hammer earned the Toranto Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2010. The film received mostly positive reviews with Roger Ebert stating: “David Fincher’s film has the rare quality of being not only as smart as its brilliant hero, but in the same way. It is cocksure, impatient, cold, exciting and instinctively perceptive.”  However, even with a host of positive reviews, Mark Zuckerberg expressed disdain for the film and did not appreciate having a film made about him during his life time.  Facebook cofounder, Dustin Moskovitz expressed mixed feelings on the film and stated: “A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I’m just going to choose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds…. The plot of the book/script unabashedly attacked [Zuckerberg], but I actually felt like a lot of his positive qualities come out truthfully in the trailer (soundtrack aside). At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.“

1. J. Edgar

The 2011 film, J. Edgar, features Armie Hammer in the role of former Associate FBI Director, Clyde Tolson.  Throughout the film, Tolson’s close friendship with J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) was highlighted as the two worked together during the days of Hoover’s work as the Director of the FBI.  The friends, who were rumored to be gay lovers, also shared an on-screen kiss which took place between Hammer and DiCaprio.  During an interview Hammer stated: “It’s the same kind of thing as if you walk onto a set and they hand you a machine gun and [say], ‘Shoot this like you know what you’re doing’ – you can’t grab that thing and go, ‘uh…’ – you kind of have to go, ‘Okay, I know what I’m doing,’ and you’ve just got to go for it. It wasn’t that weird – I have never kissed a guy – it’s not something I’m going to do in my private life, but at the end of it I was, like, man, there is a lot of weird hype.” For his role as Tolson, Armie Hammer received a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role.  The film itself also received several honors and was voted one of the top 10 films of 2011 by the American Film Institute. The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy gave the film a positive review stating: “This surprising collaboration between director Clint Eastwood and Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black tackles its trickiest challenges with plausibility and good sense, while serving up a simmeringly caustic view of its controversial subject’s behavior, public and private.”

 (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)