Dwayne Johnson Talks Up Armie Hammer for DC’s ‘Shazam!’
In the wake of this past weekend’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword failure, I’ve had a few conversations about Charlie Hunnam and the generic actors Hollywood keeps trying to turn into a thing. These conversations inevitably cycle through a few of the usual suspects (Jai Courtney, Sam Worthington, etc.) before someone throws out Armie Hammer, and that’s when I find myself forced to shut. it. down. Blame Hammer’s agent if you want for his mediocre track record, but when it comes to talent — physicality, humor, and depth of acting ability — Hammer is absolutely the real deal.
And you know who agrees with me? Oh, I don’t know, just some dude named Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, that’s who! In a recent interview with We Got This Covered (via Heroic Hollywood), Johnson was asked if there were any actors he would like to see play Black Adam nemesis (and actual superhero) Shazam. Johnson wasted no time in hinting at Hammer’s skills:
I’m going to throw one name out here and I wanna see how the fans are going to react to this. A guy who I met, and after I met him, I was like, ‘Man, that guy’s such a cool guy.’ He’s a lot bigger than I thought he would be. And when I walked away, I remember telling our [producer], we both looked at each other and were like, ‘Possibly Shazaam?’ We’re like, ‘Yes!’ I’m not even going to tell you his name, I’m just gonna say, Lone Ranger.
Later in the interview, Johnson makes it very clear that this is just speculation and that Hammer is only one of a ‘handful’ of people that Johnson has thought about for the role, briefly or otherwise. That being said, Johnson’s instincts have historically been pretty solid — you hear that, Vin Diesel? — so if Johnson sees lightning bolt stardom in Hammer’s future, the studio had better get the heck out of his way. At any rate, it’s good to see that Johnson and I agree on Hammer’s talents as an actor. Next time somebody tries to convince me that Hammer is just another bland Hollywood leading man, I’ll just tell ’em that Dwayne and I see it another way, thank you very much.