Leo to Play Bisexual Emperor?

It looks like Leonardo DiCaprio is playing gay for pay again. The upcoming Gangs of New York star — who canoodled explicitly with David Thewlis in 1995's Total Eclipse — is in talks to portray Alexander the Great in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming big-screen epic. And according to screenwriter Ted Tally, the movie will take full advantage of the young conqueror's sexually adventurous side.

"[Alexander]'ll be bisexual," the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs scribe tells TV Guide Online of the Macedonian emperor, who ruled from 336 B.C. to his death at age 32 in 323 B.C. "He seems to have been kind of omnisexual as a person.

"There's a story about him that I love," Tally recounts, "where he was campaigning in Asia, and a royal courtier from Macedonia reached him and said, 'Your sister is having an affair.' And he said, 'I don't see why she shouldn't have a little fun just because she's the princess.' The biographer says, 'Coming from a man who had three wives, at least four known mistresses, a lifelong male lover, and also is believed to have slept with a eunuch and an Amazon, this is open-mindedness at its best.'"

The film is being sheparded by mega-producer Dino De Laurentiis, whom Tally worked with on Lambs and the upcoming prequel Red Dragon (due out Oct. 4). Meanwhile, Oliver Stone is developing his own big-budget Alexander pic starring Irish cutie Colin Farrell (Minority Report). Both productions plan on shooting in Morocco next year.

"Oliver Stone has not given up yet, but he will when Dino gets done with him," Tally assures us. "Dino has already got the army and everything... Dino said the most important thing about a movie like this is, 'Where are you gonna get the army?' Forget the script, the director and the star."