Clint Eastwood's biopic J. Edgar has been shooting for several weeks now-- you can already see set photos of Leonardo DiCaprio in costume-- but in a story this big there's still plenty of room for new cast members. Variety reports that Stephen Root, the character actor you've seen in, uh, everything, has signed on to play Arthur Koehler, a relatively minor historical figure who still played a major role in the life of J. Edgar Hoover.
Much of Eastwood's film focuses around Hoover's investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, and his realization that the wrong man likely was hanged for the crime. Root will play the wood specialist who helped Hoover investigate the ladder that was used in the kidnapping. He joins a cast that already includes Armie Hammer, Josh Lucas, Ed Westwick and Naomi Watts, and given how quickly Clint Eastwood tends to shoot his movies, we can easily expect this one in theaters by the end of the year. It will quite possibly wind up being his sixth movie of 2010-- he's already in Cedar Rapids in theaters now, and also has roles in Kevin Smith's forthcoming Red State, the indies The Conspirator and Everything Must Go, and this spring's animated adventure film Rango.
