Leonardo DiCaprio confirmed Friday
he'll play gay in the upcoming Clint Eastwood biopic of FBI director
J. Edgar Hoover, but added that he won't be wearing a dress,
HitFix.com reported.
Legendary actor-director Clint Eastwood
reportedly personally wooed DiCaprio to play the film's lead.
The screenplay is being written by
openly gay Dustin Lance Black, who won a 2008 Oscar for Milk,
the Gus Van Sant biopic film about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay
politician to be elected in the United States.
While Hoover vehemently denied rumors
that he was gay, evidence gathered after his 1972 death indicates
otherwise – including the fact many of his closest friends were
closeted men. Rumors that Hoover was a crossdresser persist to this
day.
This is DiCaprio's second turn playing
gay. In the 1995 film Total Eclipse he played French poet
Arthur Rimbaud.
Speaking to reporters, DiCaprio said
the film was about the “secret life” of Hoover, such as his
involvement in the Vietnam war, and the lives of Martin Luther King
and President John F. Kennedy.
When asked if he'll be wearing a dress,
DiCaprio answered: “Not as of yet. No, we haven't done the fitting
for those. So, I don't think so.”