JamesG
08-12-2011, 05:41 PM
First Look at Leonardo DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover
By Sharon Knolle
Posted Aug 12th 2011
The first official movie images from J. Edgar have just been released to EW.
DiCaprio plays the notorious G-man who revolutionized crimefighting as the head of the bureau with then-cutting-edge forensics, but ended up a power-mad official who illegally taped phones and threatened civil rights leaders.
What about those rumors that Hoover liked to cross-dress?
Will we see Leo in drag? Director
Clint Eastwood tells EW, "the movie leaves it open to interpretation."
The Social Network's Armie Hammer plays associate FBI director Clyde Tolson, who was rumored to be Hoover's lover, but don't expect any love scenes between the two.
"With all those secrets and scandals at his fingertips, Hoover was untouchable," says Eastwood.
"Here's this guy starting the Bureau of Investigation, which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then goes on to stay for 48 years through eight presidents. Of course nobody could fire him, because he had something on everybody."
Whether Hoover was keeping a whopper of a secret of his own is up for debate. Eastwood tells EW he deliberately kept Hoover's love life ambiguous.
"Some people might interpret him as being gay. Some people might say he and Tolson were just inseparable pals. Or maybe it's a love story without being gay, I don't know. But it's very interesting, the way Lance Black laid out the script. It was nicely written. It didn't go to the obvious."
"I started to become curious about the 'why,'" says Black, who won an Oscar for 2008's Milk.
"He did wonderful things for this country, but why did he end up doing so many things that were heinous and harmful? I think it was all in the name of trying to fill that void, where love goes, with public admiration. This is a guy who from his earliest years was told he could never express the love he felt."
The movie hits theaters November 9, just in time for the awards season.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/08/12/first-look-at-leonardo-dicaprio-as-j-edgar-hoover/
By Sharon Knolle
Posted Aug 12th 2011
The first official movie images from J. Edgar have just been released to EW.
DiCaprio plays the notorious G-man who revolutionized crimefighting as the head of the bureau with then-cutting-edge forensics, but ended up a power-mad official who illegally taped phones and threatened civil rights leaders.
What about those rumors that Hoover liked to cross-dress?
Will we see Leo in drag? Director
Clint Eastwood tells EW, "the movie leaves it open to interpretation."
The Social Network's Armie Hammer plays associate FBI director Clyde Tolson, who was rumored to be Hoover's lover, but don't expect any love scenes between the two.
"With all those secrets and scandals at his fingertips, Hoover was untouchable," says Eastwood.
"Here's this guy starting the Bureau of Investigation, which later became the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and then goes on to stay for 48 years through eight presidents. Of course nobody could fire him, because he had something on everybody."
Whether Hoover was keeping a whopper of a secret of his own is up for debate. Eastwood tells EW he deliberately kept Hoover's love life ambiguous.
"Some people might interpret him as being gay. Some people might say he and Tolson were just inseparable pals. Or maybe it's a love story without being gay, I don't know. But it's very interesting, the way Lance Black laid out the script. It was nicely written. It didn't go to the obvious."
"I started to become curious about the 'why,'" says Black, who won an Oscar for 2008's Milk.
"He did wonderful things for this country, but why did he end up doing so many things that were heinous and harmful? I think it was all in the name of trying to fill that void, where love goes, with public admiration. This is a guy who from his earliest years was told he could never express the love he felt."
The movie hits theaters November 9, just in time for the awards season.
http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/08/12/first-look-at-leonardo-dicaprio-as-j-edgar-hoover/