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Private Files
In Clint Eastwood’s biopic, 'J. Edgar', Leonardo DiCaprio gets the role of a lifetime as the polarising and enigmatic first director of the FBI.
Emerging at the iconic Beverly Wilshire Hotel in a sharply tailored grey suit and pale grey shirt, Leonardo DiCaprio's strong, confident gaze and genteel manners indicate that he's ready for business, and the agenda today involves the promotion of his latest film, J. Edgar. Under the direction of Clint Eastwood, DiCaprio, still a boyish 37, ages fifty years to play FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover from the beginning of his career in his early twenties through to his death, aged 77, in 1972. The secretive FBI boss held office during six presidents, and is today remembered as much for being a cross-dressing gay man with a mother complex as he is for capturing some of America's most notorious gangsters, setting up a finger-printing database, and obsessing over communism.
Historians have often blamed Hoover's mother for being at the root of his psychological problems, although DiCaprio doesn't necessarily agree. "I would say that, from a very early age, he had to carry the mantle of the Hoover name," the actor offers. "His father was mentally disabled, and he lived with his mother until he was forty-years-old. Whenever he was criticised or when people were attacking him, he went home to his mother, and she instilled those beliefs in him again and again. 'You're doing the right thing, honey. There's great evil out there.' But a man living with his mother until he's forty-years-old? I mean, till her dying day? His mother was highly involved in his career," says the actor, whose own mother, Irmelin, was instrumental in nurturing his fledgling talent. DiCaprio, however, blanches at any suggestion of similarities. "I hope that my relationship with my mother is nothing like this one!" he says, spluttering on what he admits is his third coffee of the morning. "My Lord! Wouldn't that be horrible?"
As with every film, DiCaprio did his homework for J. Edgar, long understanding that the role would likely call for him to wear a frock at some point, not to mention kissing another man. But he was drawn to portray this oft-reviled American public figure as much for what people didn't know about him as for what the history books tell us. "It was one of those roles that I was drawn to as soon as I read the screenplay," he says in discussing Dustin Lance Black's script. "I'd first begun reading about Hoover when I was involved with [Michael Mann's] Public Enemies very early on. That era in American history was almost like The Wild West, and here came this bulldog figure of J. Edgar Hoover."
The FBI director's private life, however, was always far more mysterious. "I never knew what the hell to think of him," DiCaprio laughs. "Were they salacious rumours about him dressing as a woman? Was he a homosexual? Did he really wire-tap people? Did he manipulate presidents? Dustin's script captured this man in a way that I've never seen anyone capture him before; he didn't necessarily define him through his entire career, which was one of the longest in politics, if not the longest career that anyone's ever had in American history. Dustin chose very specific points in time in American history to tell Hoover's story. In many ways, it was the role of a lifetime."
Ask your average American what they know about J. Edgar Hoover, and they'll say that he was gay despite the lack of any concrete evidence. In the film, he shares a close bond with his second-in-command, Clyde Tolson, played by Armie Hammer. "Nobody truly knows the answer about whether they consummated that relationship or not," DiCaprio says. "But I do believe that these men were partners for their entire life. They went to work together every single day; they went on every single vacation together; they ate lunch and dinner together; there wasn't a time when they were separated. They had a great love and admiration for one another."
At the end of the day, audiences may have felt cheated without seeing DiCaprio's Hoover and Hammer's Tolson share a kiss. After kissing some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, DiCaprio was not exactly looking forward to the scene. "Well, these are the things that we do as actors," he smiles. "I was in character. And it was a very interesting scene because Clint was very clear from the get-go, saying, 'Look, this is not going to be a typical sequence. I want you guys to beat each other up first. I want as much blood as possible. And I want you to grab each other, as if you want to kill each other, and then that moment will happen.' Clint was adamant about the fact that these men were of a certain time period and, no matter what they felt, it's something that they didn't want to express necessarily to one another at that time period. There was so much repression in their emotions... I'm still not sure if I can describe it as much of a kiss!"
J. Edgar is released on January 26. This is an excerpt from a story in our Jan/Feb issue available now.