In the October 2011 issue of GQ magazine, Leonardo DiCaprio opens up about his role in Clint Eastwood’s movie playing FBI legend, J. Edgar Hoover. Leo also dishes on his long-lasting career, his father and why he’s a huge box office success.

On his impressive box office success:
“Throughout my career, I never knew which movies of mine made money and which didn’t. When Titanic came out, people would say, ‘Do you realize what a success this is?’ And I’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s a hit.’ The [money] stuff never mattered to me until I was into my thirties and got interested in producing, and people would show me charts explaining what finances a movie, what you’ll make from foreign, what you’ll make from domestic, what you need to make an R-rated film that’s a comedy versus a drama. But even now I say that unless you want to prove that you can carry a film with your name, continuously trying to achieve box-office success is a dead end.”

On being introduced to acting:
“My introduction to acting in films was with De Niro in This Boy’s Life. When I got the part I was 15, and somebody said, ‘Do you realize who you’re gonna work with?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I guess.’ And they said, ‘No, no, no. Go watch all of his films, and then go see these people’s films.’ So I obsessively watched films on VHS, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed by what had been done in cinema already. Watching a young Brando or James Dean or Montgomery Clift, I was like, Oh, my God, how can anyone ever hope to achieve that type of greatness?”

On how his father helps him with film/role selection:
“My father has always been a huge force with me. I had passed on a script about the French poet Arthur Rimbaud [Total Eclipse]. He explained to me that Rimbaud was the James Dean of his time—a radical who took on the institution of poetry and turned it upside down. I did the movie, and I loved playing him. If I just waited for moments of I have to do this, I would do a movie only every four or five years.”

On how J. Edgar Hoover’s sexual orientation will be portrayed by him:
“What we’re saying is that he definitely had a relationship with Tolson that lasted for nearly fifty years. Neither of them married. They lived close to one another. They worked together every day. They vacationed together. And there was rumored to be more. There are definite insinuations of—well, I’m not going to get into where it goes, but…”