Dustin Lance Black Cracks Hoover’s Private Gay Life Wide Open in "J. Edgar"

Dustin Lance Black

Fall is upon us, and that means a stream of prestigious films are hitting theaters looking to impress audiences and grab the attention of Academy Award voters. One of those films is J. Edgar, a docu-film about the life of J. Edgar Hoover, who helped found the Federal Bureau of Investigations as well as its first Director, a job he held until his death in 1972.

In the Clint Eastwood-directed film, Leonardo DiCaprio takes on the role of Hoover from his twenties up until the age of 77. The stellar cast includes Naomi Watts as longtime Hoover secretary Helen Gandy and Judi Dench as Hoover’s domineering mother. The core relationship of the film, however, is definitely man-on-man.

That relationship between Hoover and his protégé, Associate Director of the FBI Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer, The Social Network) may have seemed like all business at the office, but behind closed doors the two shared an intimate relationship at a time when gay relationships were never spoken of and were still filled with much shame. That said, the two would spend years living together and Tolson was Hoover’s sole heir upon his death.

The screenwriter of J. Edgar is Dustin Lance Black, and he knows a bit about writing film biographies having won an Academy Award in 2009 for Milk. In crafting J. Edgar, Black had to dig deep to find material on the very private Hoover and also deduce exactly what was the nature of the relationship between Hoover and Tolson.

At the press conference late last week, AfterElton.com sat down at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills for some one-on-one time with the screenwriter and, also, tireless advocate for equal rights.

AfterElton.com: The film opened the AFI Fest. How was seeing the movie with an audience?
Dustin Lance Black: It’s always revelatory because you never know if they’re going to laugh, where they’re going to laugh, where people might tear up, where they might get fidgety in their seat. You’re taking it for a ride. Oftentimes you get that earlier with test screenings but Clint doesn’t do those.

DLB with J. Edgar director Clint Eastowod and star Leonardo DiCaprio

AE: You seem to be becoming the go-to guy for bio-pics…
DLB: It seems that way, doesn’t it?

AE: Is that merely because that’s in your wheelhouse, or is it just the way things are falling?
DLB: I know people have said, ‘Oh, aren’t you afraid of being pigeonholed as a bio-pic guy?’ and, well, it’s a nice little pigeonhole! I’m curious about things and people, and I don’t like to depend, necessarily, on the news reports. Even just the little bit that I’ve been in the news I’m like, ‘Well, that’s not exactly right.’ But I always want to know about people and what they’re really like and what really happened and getting to experience other people’s perspective on life is fascinating.

Yeah, I’m doing The Barefoot Bandit right now, Colton Harris-Moore, and then after that is [Jon Krakauer’s] Under the Banner of Heaven, which isn’t a bio-pic but a true life story. It’s that thing. It might sound trite but the more you get to know very, very different people under very different circumstances the more I feel a part of this common humanity. We’re really similar. People are very similar. It almost is spiritual in a way. I do like it.

AE: One of the things I read in the press notes was what a mystery Hoover was. How did you approach that from a movie standpoint and dramatizing his life? Did a lot of what we see in the film happen? Were they assumptions?
DLB: I try my best to always root things in truth so it’s something that it’s anchored in. I don’t want to just completely make something up out of whole cloth especially if it’s a pivotal moment. There are some things you can make up out of whole cloth which are just about character and that I feel more comfortable doing. But certainly plot is something that will be seen by people and referenced as history or truth so I try to anchor it.

So, things like a fight in a hotel room that these two shared. [Hoover and Tolson] really did share this hotel room and this fight was overheard by people in adjoining rooms and, in fact, Clyde couldn’t come to work for a week because of a black eye. You know, things that work associates don’t normally do. So things like that are a good example… or the way these actresses would flirt with Hoover is all documented in their own autobiographies. These stories have been told and retold of how disinterested he was in some of the most beautiful women of his time.

To me, there needs to be an anchor and then you have to have done your work not only researching the person and everything you can find out about them and do the hard work, too, but also research the time and know the rules of the time. I think fortunately it leaves a lot of gray and I like gray and leaving things less defined [and] letting the audience participate in that. There was no word ‘gay.’ Gay didn’t mean what it means today. Gay meant you were having a good time. Homosexual wouldn’t be used until later when it was used to define a disease.

DiCaprio (right) and Armie Hammer as Clyde Tolson

AE: What was the word, then? Was it ‘queer’ or was it just not talked about?
DLB: It was a love that dared not speak. A lot of research I did were with men who are now in their 80s and 90s…I met with these people and more who talked about what we would call ‘gay life’ although they didn’t have a word for it then. This was pre-sexual revolution, pre-Stonewall. Even in the privacy of their own bedrooms, it was something that wasn’t discussed and something that was known to be dangerous and better left undefined. I think that was why it was important that it not be put into dialogue in the film. It’s in the action lines and thankfully we had Leonardo and Armie who could really bring that subtext to life. I hope you feel there’s love between them. If you listen to the words, they’re talking about hiring him as second in charge and really it’s a wedding proposal.