Dakota Johnson, who once spoke truth to power (“That’s not true, Ellen.”), indirectly demolishing a daytime-show empire, is now making jokes about Armie Hammer’s cannibalism allegations. “Sadly, I wasn’t in [Call Me by Your Name]. Luca had asked me to play the role of the peach, but our schedules conflicted,” she said in a speech presenting Luca Guadagnino with the International Icon award at Sundance Film Festival’s opening-night gala, referring to his gay coming-of-age romance that debuted at the festival five years ago, starring Hammer and Timothée Chalamet. “Thank God, because then I would have been another woman that Armie Hammer tried to eat.” Everyone knows Oliver doesn’t bite the peach in the movie like he does in the book, but we digress.
Whoever wrote Johnson’s remarks may have forgotten that the Lost Daughter and Fifty Shades star previously defended her former co-star Armie Hammer (plus other former colleagues Shia LaBeouf and Johnny Depp) against “cancel culture.” “I had an incredible time working with them; I feel sad for the loss of great artists,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2021. For some, the cannibalism dig (?) landed a little awkwardly. For the filmmakers and lovers in the room, though, the joke was met with chuckles first, and then loud applause. “Who knew cannibalism was so popular?” she finished. Whatever the Blue Bottle Coffee warden meant by the joke, we probably won’t see its Ellen-like ramifications until next Sundance when one of these indie bigwigs inevitably attempts to redeem Hammer post–Cayman Island cut-off. Thanks a lot, Dakota.
