Assigning a variable to an object in Freemarker templates

I am trying to avoid repeatedly refering to objects like this:

${outter.inner.assignThisGuy.field1}

and would like to refer to lowest level, i.e.

${assignThisGuy.field1}

This will help me remove repeated null checks and make my template tidier. I'm not sure if this is possible. All the notes refer to assigning a variable to a type like ?string, ?date, etc.

When I try to do it I get an exception:

freemarker.template.TemplateException: Expected hash. thisGuy evaluated instead to freemarker.template.SimpleScalar 

I have tried variations on:

[#assign thisGuy = "${outter.inner.assignThisGuy}" ]

I just want to be sure this is not possible before some of my lines become massive in length!