At a press conference for the Toronto
International Film Festival (TIFF) screening of Call Me By Your Name,
actor Armie Hammer said that he almost turned down the role.
Based on the 2007 novel by the same
name, Call Me By Your Name follows a love affair between a
17-year-old American-Italian Jewish boy (played by Timothee Chalamet)
and a 24-year-old American Jewish scholar (Hammer) who is visiting
Italy in the late 1980s. André
Aciman's acclaimed novel chronicles the pair's brief affair and two
later-in-life reunions.
The 31-year-old Hammer told reporters
that the movie's nudity worried him.
“I did want to pass. I did want to
pass. It scared me,” Hammer
said.
“I was a little nervous about all the
nudity that was originally in the script. And I had images of my
daughter being at school, and she's 13 years old, and people are
teasing her and printing out pictures of my penis and, I thought, 'Oh
man!'”
A conversation with director Luca
Guadagnino won him over.
“Because this [role] challenged me,
it's the reason I had to take it,” Hammer said. “I couldn't be
more thankful for the experience.”
Call Me By Your Name opens
Friday, November 24.