How Armie Hammer Is Trying to Mount His Hollywood Comeback

Nearly four years after numerous sexual misconduct allegations and rumors of cannibalism toppled his career, Armie Hammer is attempting to plot a major Hollywood comeback.

On Monday, Hammer dropped the first episode of a new podcast entitled The Armie HammerTime Podcast. Per the show’s official description, Hammer will sit down “with extraordinary people from all walks of life as he rebuilds his own. Don’t worry…we feed him before every episode.”

“Some of you are going to love it, and some of you are going to f---ing hate it,” Hammer said in a video announcing the podcast. Calling the show “a journal, of sorts,” the Lone Ranger star explained that it was born through “the concept that throughout the course of the day, every single person that you interact with knows at least one thing you don’t…I want to have long-form, interesting conversations with people who have tools, or skills, or have acquired wisdom—or even just know random s--t that I don’t know, I want to learn.”

On Wednesday, Hammer made an even more significant announcement pertaining to his self-mounted Hollywood comeback. Deadline reported that Hammer has been cast as the lead in Frontier Crucible, his first role since the scandal. The film is described as a “period Western drama,” and hails from noted producer Dallas Sonnier, who is not without his own scandals.

“I’ve built a career producing masculine indie movies, such as Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Dragged Across Concrete, Muzzle, and The Standoff at Sparrow Creek, and worked with legendary actors including Kurt Russell, Vince Vaughn, Mel Gibson, Jason Sudeikis, Guy Pearce, Aaron Eckhart, Don Johnson, Stephen Lang, James Badge Dale, Steve Austin, and more. And, now, I’m pumped to work with Armie Hammer on Frontier Crucible,” Sonnier told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement.

Hammer shared photos of himself on the set, as well as the script’s title page, in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “Back in the saddle,” he captioned the post.

Hammer experienced a swift fallout in the aftermath of the allegations against him, which included an accusation of rape and multiple alleged instances of severe emotional abuse. The Los Angeles County District Attorney declined to press charges against him in 2023 after an investigation due to a lack of evidence, and Hammer has maintained that his sexual relationships were consensual, albeit emotionally abusive in some instances.

The actor lost high-profile roles in Paramount+’s Godfather miniseries The Offer and opposite Jennifer Lopez in Amazon’s action-comedy Shotgun Wedding. However, Hammer continued to have a contingent of supporters, including Robert Downey Jr. In the last few months, Hammer has been slowly inching his way out from underneath the scandal. It remains to be seen whether his new projects will be embraced by mainstream Hollywood or audiences after his fall from grace.

You can listen to The Armie HammerTime Podcast on Spotify.