Hollywood actress Naomi Watts has joined the cast of Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar in the role of personal secretary Helen Gandy to Leonardo DiCaprio’s character J. Edgar Hoover, founder of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, reports Variety.
Watts will portray the real-life Gandy, who began working for Hoover in 1918, and continued up until his death in 1972.
Based on a script by Dustin Lance Black, the biopic aims to tell the sensational story of Hoover’s life including his scandalous career, and controversial private life as a homosexual and rumoured cross-dresser.
Watts’s most recent film, the 2010 thriller Fair Game, was based on the memoir of spy Valerie Plame. She recently finished shooting Jim Sheridan’s horror flick Dream House with Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, which is set for release September 30.