Clint Eastwood’s most recent work as a director has been the stuff of Rush Limbaugh fantasy, war movies and sympathetic racists mostly, and his next movie might seem to fit squarely into that mold since it’s about the FBI’s legendary director J. Edgar Hoover. Except there are those rumors that Hoover liked to dress up in women’s underwear when he wasn’t busy harassing American citizens and trampling all over most of the Constitution’s amendments, and maybe he had a gay lover too.
Eastwood’s Hoover plans to explore that, maybe even make it a centerpiece of his story, since it was written by Milk. scribe Dustin Lance Black and NYMag says he’s after some pretty high-profile stars to play Hoover’s boyfriend.
In particular they say he wants Joaquin Phoenix to play Clyde Tolson. In public he was Hoover’s protégé but in private they had a suspiciously close relationship that didn’t seem to involve a lot of double dating. Instead they spent all their time together, dining and even vacationing as a duo. Tolson was the beneficiary on J. Edgar’s life insurance policy and when Hoover died, Tolson inherited his estate and moved into his house. Yet neither Hoover nor Tolson ever really came out of the closet, in fact Hoover made it his mission to destroy anyone who questioned his sexuality while alive, so in the end it’s all speculation. Speculation which it sounds like Eastwood’s movie is eager to explore.
Leonardo DiCaprio is the most likely candidate to play Hoover, though he’s not yet locked in and when last he spoke about the project, didn’t seem entirely sure whether Hoover’s rumored crossdressing, let along homosexuality, would be explored. Will Leonardo DiCaprio end up making out with Joaquin Phoenix? It sounds like Oscar, or at least MTV Best Kiss, material in the making.
