Armie Hammer cried himself to sleep every night for two years as a teenager.
The ‘Call Me By Your Name’ actor had grown up in the Cayman Islands, but returned to Los Angeles with his family when he was 12, and struggled to fit in with his classmates because he had been "living in a bubble" and was singled out for his differences.
He recalled: "It was a big adjustment, to put it lightly.
"I didn’t know who Nirvana were, or who the Lakers were. I had been living in a little bubble. I think the first two years I was in LA, I cried myself to sleep almost every night.
"Growing up in the Cayman Islands, the worst thing I ever got called was a white boy. I came to a place where kids were just vicious. I had long blond hair, a slight accent, I was a bit different. It wasn’t kind."
And the 31-year-old star – who has children Harper, three, and Ford, 10 months, with wife Elizabeth Chambers – didn’t really have any friends during his school days.
He told Mr. Porter’s The Journal: "I never really had friends. I had acquaintances, but school wasn’t really my place."
The ‘Lone Ranger’ star has never felt the need to apologise for his wealthy background because although it brought him more opportunities, he still had "demons" to deal with.
He said: "There is that misconception that, ‘Oh, you grew up in a wealthy family so you must have got it easier.’ I probably had opportunities that other people didn’t have.
"But I guarantee that other people didn’t have [parents] beating into their skull that they were the ‘representation of the family’. That was not the easiest pill to swallow.
"People might look at me and think my life is so perfect, but everybody wrestles with the same demons."
Armie Hammer’s sad teenage years
