SHORT INTERVIEW LEO DID ON J. EDGAR

US Magazine November 21, 2011

LEO’S LATEST ADVENTURE
DiCaprio tells Us about playing an arresting FBI figure


“The crew was meticulous in creating a very overweight version of myself,” says DiCaprio of playing a 77-year-old Hoover.


Leonardo DiCaprio has had many onscreen kisses, but non quite like this. As J. Edgar Hoover, a deeply closeted cross-dressing former FBI director, in the period drama, J. Edgar (out now), DiCaprio locks lips with Armie Hammer, who plays Hoover’s longtime associate. “Hoover was incredibly repressed emotionally,” says DiCaprio, 37, who plays the uberprivate bureaucrat from his twenties until his death at 77. “But no matter what his sexual orientation, he was devoted to his job.” The single actor, who’s filming The Great Gatsby, tells Us about his nine-to-five.


WHY CHOOSE THIS PART?
Hoover was a Crock-Pot of eccentricities. He was one of the most powerful men in the last century-and he lived with his mother until he was 40! He was revered and feared, yet he was a mama’s boy.


CAN YOU RELATE TO HIS PRIVATE NATURE?
The idea of completely sacrificing any sort of love in your life is a hard concept for me to wrap my head around.


WAS IT TOUGH PLAYING AN OLD MAN?
The transformation was difficult-it was five or six hours in makeup every day. Then, you have to slow down your pace and speak in a way that gets the audience to believe you have 50 years of political experience under your belt, which I don’t have!


HAPPY WITH THE 77-YEAR-OLD YOU?
I hope I don’t look anything like that!