Clint Eastwood turned eighty earlier this summer but he’s obviously not the retiring kind. He makes more movies than most directors half his age. Hereafter, a new supernatural drama starring Matt Damon opens in a month and then he’s shooting a biopic on J. Edgar Hoover, the infamous first Director of the FBI who wielded enormous power and also lived a scandalous closeted life.
You wouldn’t necessarily expect Clint Eastwood, that cultural icon of taciturn masculinity to take on a gay biopic but I guess when you churn out so many movies you’re bound to hit on every genre eventually. (What’s next, a musical?) Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing Hoover and word is out that Eastwood wants Joaquin Phoenix to play his longtime rumored lover, Clyde Tolson. Tolson also worked in the FBI for decades, socialized and vacationed with Hoover and inherited his estate after his death.
Can you imagine Joaquin and Leonardo as lovers? Or, rather, how quickly did you just imagine Joaquin and Leonardo as lovers?
It seems like an odd project for Eastwood but then again … maybe it makes sense that Eastwood, a powerful figure in Hollywood who just won’t abdicate his throne would relate to Hoover, a powerful figure in Washington who ruled the FBI up until his death. One suspects Eastwood hopes to die in the director’s chair rather than a bed … many, many years from now.
† First Clip of Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole
† Love and Other Drugs‘ Sexy Poster
† Trailer to Mildred Pierce Starring Kate Winslet
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