‘Honest’ Paul Walter Hauser defends rating his own film 3.5 out of 5 stars on Letterboxd

Fans noticed Hauser, who starred in the 2019 crime thriller ‘Richard Jewell,’ gave the film a middling review on Letterboxd

Paul Walter Hauser has defended his decision rate his film Richard Jewell, in which he played the lead role, a 3.5 out of 5-star rating on Letterboxd.

The 38-year-old acclaimed actor is an active user of the movie review app Letterboxd. In fact, he’s handed out ratings to many of his own films, a social media user pointed out this week.

“Paul Walter Hauser giving Richard Jewell a 3.5 on Letterboxd, a movie in which he quite literally plays the title character, is one of the funnier things I’ve come across on that app,” they wrote on X/Twitter on Wednesday (December 4).

That same day, Hauser took the time to respond to the post, writing back: “If I think The Shawshank Redemption and Schindler’s List are 5/5, and Richard Jewell is not a perfect movie/bonafide classic, what’s wrong with giving an honest rating? It’s a good film that is definitely worth watching. A 3.5 out of 5 is not a slight. It’s reality.”

The 2019 based-on-a-true-story crime thriller, directed by Clint Eastwood, starred Hauser as Richard Jewell — the man who found a bomb at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and alerted authorities, and was later placed under suspicion himself.

Paul Walter Hauser says he gave ‘an honest rating’ to his own movie on Letterboxd (Getty Images for Netflix)

In a follow-up post, Hauser recalled that he had positive memories of filming Richard Jewell.

“I love the movie and have so many fond memories on it,” he wrote. “[Sam] Rockwell was like an uncle to me. [Jon] Hamm was like a big brother. I met my WIFE while filming in ATL. Sebastian Stan let me stay at his pad for FREE. It was a twinkly sparkly time in my life. And the movie is good.”

On Letterboxd, Hauser has also rated several other films he starred in.

He gave 2.5 stars to both The Instigators, in which he has a small role, and to Queenpins; 3 stars to the Bill Burr comedy Old Dads; 3.5 stars to the Dreamworks animation Orion and the Dark; 4 stars to Pixar’s Inside Out 2, in which he voiced Embarassment; another 4 stars to the unreleased Sydney Sweeney film Americana; and 4.5 stars to Cruella.

Earlier this year, Hauser apologized to Vin Diesel after claiming that the action star was not known for being “on time and approachable.”

In a lengthy statement shared to Instagram, Hauser said he was “genuinely sorry for shooting my mouth off and not showing love to Vin, who I do not know and have never met.”