Dakota Johnson Jokes About Armie Hammer Cannibalism Claims

Dakota Johnson arrived at the Sundance Film Festival 2023 armed with jokes about Armie Hammer.

On Thursday, Johnson, 33, was the first presenter at the festival’s Opening Night: A Taste of Sundance Presented by IMDbPro event, where she honored director Luca Guadagnino with the International Icon Award.

During her speech, the actress, who worked with Guadagnino on 2018’s Suspiria, joked about allegations involving sexually explicit messages allegedly sent by Hammer describing cannibalism fantasies (which he has denied) as she spoke about Hammer and Guadagnino’s film Call Me By Your Name, which premiered at Sundance back in 2017.

“Luca had asked me to play the role of the peach but our schedules conflicted,” she told an audience, per The Hollywood Reporter. “Thank God, though, because then I would’ve been another woman that Armie Hammer tried to eat.” (Hammer’s character, Oliver, bites into a peach in one memorable scene from the drama.)

“It’s been five years since [Call Me By Your Name] premiered here and Luca hasn’t stopped taking us to exciting places,” Johnson added at the event, in reference to the director’s most recent film, Bones and All. “Who knew cannibalism was so popular?” she then quipped, according to THR.

Hammer, 36, has been accused by exes of having cannibalism fantasies, which is touched on in the docuseries House of Hammer. A rep for Hammer did not responded to PEOPLE’s previous request for comment about the claims.

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In an August interview with Deadline, director Guadagnino said the eyebrow-raising reaction to Bones and All — which stars Hammer’s fellow Call Me by Your Name actors Timothée Chalamet and Michael Stuhlbarg and deals with cannibalism — “didn’t dawn on me” until after he announced the project.

The director said in the interview that Bones and All “had been in development for a number of years before” it was brought to him in 2020, and that his interest in making the movie was based on how he “responded immediately to these characters who are disenfranchised and living on the edge of society.”

“Any link with anything else exists only in the realm of social media, with which I do not engage,” Guadagnino continued. “The relationship between this kind of digital muckraking and our wish to make this movie is nonexistent and it should be met with a shrug.”

“I would prefer to talk about what the film has to say, rather than things that have nothing to do with it,” he added at the time.

Guadagnino went on to say that it’s “a travesty towards the fundamental need for new attitudes to the ways in which we work together and deal with one another,” adding, “Women have historically been put in a lesser position by patriarchal entitlement, and it’s important for that injustice to be addressed constructively so that it brings about real change.”

“The muckraking of social media doesn’t address anything constructively, and the idea that this very profoundly important fight for equality can be misdirected in this way is something that frustrates me greatly,” he said. “We mustn’t diminish that most important thing with this muckraking.”

Back in 2021, Johnson spoke about a few of her past male costars facing serious allegations, including Hammer, who was in 2010’s The Social Network with her.

“I never experienced that firsthand from any of those people. I had an incredible time working with them; I feel sad for the loss of great artists. I feel sad for people needing help and perhaps not getting it in time,” she told THR at the time. “I feel sad for anyone who was harmed or hurt. It’s just really sad. I do believe that people can change. I want to believe in the power of a human being to change and evolve and get help and help other people. I think there’s definitely a major overcorrection happening. But I do believe that there’s a way for the pendulum to find the middle. … But, yeah, cancel culture is such a f—ing downer. I hate that term.”