(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Leonardo DiCaprio feels lucky he never had a "stage mom" pushing him.

The Hollywood star is very close to his mother Irmelin and she fully supported his decision to pursue an acting career. She always let him take his own path though, which he's thankful for.

In new movie J. Edgar Leonardo plays former FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The actor was amazed to discover the real driving force behind Hoover's career.

"Here's one of the most powerful men in our country in the last century, if not the most powerful, and he was motivated by his mother. She was like a stage mom in politics. I didn't have anything like that growing up. I always wanted to be an actor just because I wanted to be an actor and I just knew that. It came from me," he told ET Online.

Leonardo was drawn to the movie as soon as he read the script. It follows Hoover's tumultuous professional life as well as his rumoured private one as a cross dresser.

"Really the motivation was reading the screenplay that Dustin Lance Black wrote and his portrait of J. Edgar was a fascinating one," the actor explained. "To see a portrait of a man and understand his motivations at a very young age, that intense need to be ambitious and make your career paramount it was just a fascinating character that I immediately said yes to. The very next day I wanted to go and shoot the movie and then I found out Clint Eastwood was directing." (C) Cover Media