Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance
Black has confirmed that Leonardo DiCaprio will play FBI director J.
Edgar Hoover in an upcoming biopic.
Speaking
to all-things-film website MovieLine.com, Black also said he has
completed the movie's script and filming was set for early next year.
On Wednesday, New York Magazine
reported that Joaquin Phoenix is being pursued to play Hoover's
alleged lover, Clyde Tolson.
The film will be helmed by legendary
actor-director Clint Eastwood.
Black, who is openly gay, also
discussed what sets Hoover apart from Milk, the
Gus Van Sant biopic about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay
politician to be elected in the United States.
“Hoover is not as linear and
traditional as Milk – but it didn't need to be. It was
important that Milk be that. People know Hoover – or think
they know Hoover – and that's great as a writer because you're free
as a writer to explore other stuff. People didn't know Milk, so I
think it needed a more traditional structure.”
Hoover vehemently denied he was gay,
but willed his estate to Tolson, whose grave rests yards from
Hoover's in the Congressional Cemetery. Other evidence that Hoover
was gay includes the fact that many of his closest friends were
closeted men. Rumors that Hoover was a crossdresser persist to this
day.