And it’s a wrap.
According to E! Online’s Marc Malkin and Brett Malec, Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer have filmed their kissing scene for the upcoming Clint Eastwood–directed biopic J. Edgar.
According to a source, the scene between the two actors is hot. DiCaprio is starring in the film as late FBI boss J. Edgar Hoover, while The Social Network’s Hammer plays his protégé and rumored lover Clyde Tolson.
"[They did] more [takes] than Clint normally does," the source said. "They wanted to make it right ... It's a more involved scene than just the kissing ... It was so sexy."
Before production began, it was rumored the film had been stripped of its gay content. But screenwriter Dustin Lance Black told AfterElton.com: "To think that somehow you’re going to a make a movie about somebody like J. Edgar and you’re not going to learn what’s in his heart, that’s just not going to happen in a script that I write. It’s unfounded [the idea that the movie is being de-gayed.]"
Leonardo DiCaprio is no stranger to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In "Catch Me If You Can" he was constantly one step ahead of the FBI as legendary scam artist Frank Abagnale Jr. He also earned the domestic intelligence agency's attention as industrialist Howard Hughes in "The Aviator." Now DiCaprio is set to lead the FBI, playing its very first director, J. Edgar Hoover.
Deadline Hollywood reports that the "Shutter Island" star will take on the challenging task of bringing the controversial Hoover's life to the big screen in a biopic to be directed by Clint Eastwood, who is also producing with Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment. The script comes from Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Milk." Deadline further reports that the film is untitled, though IMDb identifies it simply as "Hoover."
A great deal of controversy surrounds the life of the FBI's first director. Hoover served in a leadership role over the FBI and its precursor organizations for a total of 48 years. Although he is credited as being responsible for instituting many of the bureau's grand-scale crime-fighting techniques, he has also been accused of misusing his power for political purposes and employing illegal methods in evidence-gathering. Following Hoover's reign, the FBI instituted a 10-year maximum term for all directors.
As for Hoover's personal life, it is fraught with rumors that he was a closeted homosexual and cross-dresser. Many of these allegations come from untrustworthy sources and have been refuted, but it remains to be seen how Black chose to handle that aspect of the FBI director's life in his script.
DiCaprio teamed with filmmaker Martin Scorsese earlier in the year — their fourth collaboration — for an adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel "Shutter Island." The actor also has a major summer blockbuster coming next month, sci-fi action/thriller "Inception," from "The Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan.
Eastwood has shifted in his later years from grizzled cowboy actor to respected filmmaker. He picked up Oscar nominations for "Mystic River" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," and he took home Best Director and Best Picture awards in 2005 for "Million Dollar Baby," a film for which he also received a Best Actor nom.
Eastwood is set to release his latest directing effort, "Hereafter," later this year. The Peter Morgan-penned supernatural thriller stars Matt Damon and Bryce Dallas Howard. "Hoover" is tentatively scheduled for a 2012 release.
Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black has joined a growing list of stars who have slammed editors at Newsweek magazine after a popular columnist criticised gay actors Jonathan Groff and Sean Hayes for portraying straight men.
The openly-gay moviemaker won an Oscar for the 2008 film, starring Sean Penn as homosexual politician Harvey Milk, and he's fuming over the controversial piece, which saw columnist Ramin Setoodeh single out Glee star Groff and Hayes, who is currently appearing on Broadway in Promises, Promises.
He's joined forces with Jarrett Barrios, the president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), to pen a letter to The Hollywood Reporter expressing his anger over the article, which was published last month.
They write, "Sadly, he (Setoodeh) seems to raise more questions about his own internalised biases than what the 'public' actually perceives. The public is thrilled with Jonathan Groff's turn as a leading man on Glee... (and) while Setoodeh zeroes in on Sean Hayes on Broadway, he refuses to mention how Americans have embraced the openly gay current and past leading men.
"America is starting to embrace open gay and lesbian actors in heterosexual roles on stage and screen and Setoodeh himself is not yet ready to.
"Maybe Setoodeh can't see Glee and Promises, Promises except through a lens of dark stereotypes he's inherited. Maybe he's got some axe to grind. But whatever the reason, with the stakes so high for gay Americans at this moment, it is no excuse for his editors inflicting such hurtful - and baseless - musings on the readers of Newsweek. We'd all have been better off leaving Setoodeh's tortured thoughts on his therapist's couch and leaving baseless stories like this one on the editor's desk."
Kristin Chenoweth and Glee creator Ryan Murphy have also blasted the article, with Murphy urging Americans not to buy the magazine until editors apologise for the piece.
Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has been caught up in a gay sex scandal after footage of the Milk screenwriter performing oral sex on a lover were leaked online on Friday
Photo agency Starzlife obtained the scandalous snaps, which also feature the gay writer/director having sex. Blogger Perez Hilton writes, "We're told the photo agency also has video!"
Black has responded to photographs of him having what appears to be unprotected sex with a man he was dating three years ago.
“It is unfortunate that individuals and other outside parties are trying to profit from material which is clearly private,” Black said in the statement released E!Online’s Marc Malkin. “I have had the privilege to speak to people across the country, both gay and straight, on a number of critical issues including safe sex. More important than the embarrassment of this incident is the misleading message these images send. I apologize and cannot emphasize enough the importance of responsible sexual practices.”
Marc writes that Lance’s attorneys are trying to halt distribution of the explicit photos which leave absolutely nothing to the imagination.”
And it’s a wrap.
