J Edgar Hoover Quotes

We’re interested in complex characters and he’s a complex character, [J. Edgar] Hoover. I like these types of dramas. I’ve made a few of them and I’m also interested in power structures so it just has elements that fascinate me, and the more you learn about Hoover, the more polarizing you realize he is.

By every measure, John Kennedy’s sex life was compulsive and reckless. At one level, it had clear public consequences. Knowledge of Kennedy’s behavior gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover absolute job security, as well as the potential power to derail Kennedy’s re-election had he survived assassination.

To me, you couldn’t write a character like J. Edgar Hoover and have it be believable. I mean, he was a crock pot of eccentricities. We couldn’t even fit all his eccentricities into [ the same named] movie.

[ J. Edgar]Hoover, I’m sure, felt that he was right in everything he did and even the things that we don’t like about his character.

There are so many parallels in society today [with era of J. Edgar Hoover ] that you can use, whether it’s the head of a studio or the head of an organization, a major newspaper, a major factory or company, of people who stay too long, maybe, and overstay their usefulness.

I had not been very kind to J. Edgar Hoover. And the field agent had written on – it was sent directly to Hoover – that – the director should see this – `And, besides, Hentoff is a lousy writer.’ And I thought that went a bit far.

If you read any of the biographies on J. Edgar Hoover, you find that they contradict each other more than they agree. Often times, they’re often told from a political perspective.

J. Edgar Hoover, J. Bracken Lee, J. Parnell Thomas, J. Paul Getty — you can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.

All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

They [FBI] had a lot of clippings, a lot of articles I’d written. And to me the – the funniest one was – I had done a piece for Playboy about J. Edgar Hoover.

It’s an incredible education [for the movie J. Edgar Hoover] . It was like I did a college course on J. Edgar Hoover but not knowing and understanding the history and reading the books, but understanding what motivated this man was the most fascinating part of the research.

You know, back in the 1950s and ’60s, when J. Edgar Hoover was making the FBI the respected organization it used to be, oftentimes they would find a fugitive and basically have his house surrounded, and then put out a press release saying he was on the top 10 most wanted list. And 10 minutes later, he’d be arrested.

If Congress is going to investigate baseball players about whether or not they told the truth, how can we justify giving the most powerful intelligence official, [James] Clapper, a pass? This is how J. Edgar Hoover ended up in charge of the FBI forever.

I would far rather over-estimate the threat [imposed by the Patriot Act] and be proven wrong than to underestimate the threat and wake up one morning in a world where the 21st century’s J Edgar Hoover has the power to blackmail anyone in America.

Also, with information having just come out at the time about J. Edgar Hoover’s electronic surveillance of Dr. King, it gave greater weight to the statements of those persons who were alleging involvement of the FBI.

I’m so happy, I think I’ll dress up like J. Edgar Hoover and sing show tunes.

We actually did a lot of takes on this movie [J. Edgar Hoover]. I never left the set wanting more. That’s for sure. I don’t know. This was a very difficult character for me and a lot of the other actors here, and at times we went and did 8 or 9 or 10 takes on a single day.