Dear Gossips,

By the time most of you read this, the Golden Globe nominations will have been announced and we’ll have a much clearer picture of what award season will look like in the new year, who’s a proper contender and whose campaigns will shut down. While the conversation will predominantly be about the nominees, we shouldn’t sleep on what the presenter situation during the season will look like. As you know, typically the winners from the previous year return to the major shows the following year. And given what’s happened this year, with Hollywood’s culture of sexual harassment being challenged, everyone’s thinking about Casey Affleck. 

Armie Hammer is a potential Best Supporting Actor nominee this year for his performance in Call Me By Your Name. Armie made some comments about Casey Affleck recently in his interview with The Hollywood Reporter. When I posted about this a couple of weeks ago, I called it a fumble. The way I read it, it’s not that he was trying to say that Casey Affleck and Nate Parker’s situations were the same but that Casey Affleck coasted through the entire Oscar process without being called on it. Would that have happened this year, in this environment?

Amy Zimmerman wrote a piece about this for the Daily Beast that I linked to every chance I got last year and I’m linking to it again because it’s a much more articulate version of what Armie was attempting in THR, pointing out that, sure, while the allegations against Casey Affleck may not be nearly as egregious as Nate Parker’s, does that mean he gets a total pass? 

Armie is now apologising to Casey Affleck for what he said in THR. And this is interesting on many levels. One level? They’re repped by the same agency, WME. Maybe that’s irrelevant. Maybe that has nothing to do with anything. But right now everyone’s trying to angle their way in for a better chance at Oscar. And everyone’s trying to make sure they’re not alienating a certain block of voters against them. Remember all the support Casey had last year? And he was up against Denzel Washington! No problem. A year later, it’s Armie Hammer, with zero sexual harassment allegations against him, who’s seemingly having a harder time securing votes than someone with Casey Affleck’s history. What does that say about Hollywood? 

More on the Golden Globe nominations through the day. 

Yours on gossip,

Lainey