Starting out as a child star in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Leonardo DiCaprio has lived a storied life beneath the Hollywood sign in California. Since that first movie, he has taken on some of the industry’s greatest roles, finding fame, fortune and critical acclaim during an impressively extensive career that even includes an Academy Award. However, perhaps one of his greatest achievements is the people he worked with.

DiCaprio can boast having been the leading man in pictures led by Steven Spielberg with Catch Me If You Can, Christopher Nolan in Inception, Baz Lurhamn in Romeo + Juliet and The Great Gatsby, Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and a host of collaborations with Martin Scorsese including The Wolf of Wall Street, Shutter Island and his most recent venture Killers of the Flower Moon.

It’s an impressive list of collaborators that includes some of the finest directors in cinema history. His work with Scorsese is perhaps his most notable run of movies and has seen the star turn from a Hollywood heartthrob into a serious, if a little gnarled, veteran actor. However, there is one director DiCaprio seems intent to never work with again.

2011’s J. Edgar is not considered one of DiCaprio’s greatest roles despite delivering a viably powerful performance as the titular J Edgar Hoover, the FBI director. It was a role that clearly spoke to DiCaprio, who reportedly cut his usual fee of $20million down to just $2m to star in the film. The big slash in costs would bring the budget of the picture down a little, but the execs at Warner Bros were intent on squeezing every penny they could, so they roped in Clint Eastwood as director.

Known for an incredibly efficient shooting style, Eastwood would rarely offer an actor more than one chance to deliver the scene. This unique way of filmmaking would naturally keep costs of production down, and J. Edgar would cost only $35m, making it a comparative success against its $84m box office return. But Eastwood’s way of directing would lead to DiCaprio avoiding working with Eastwood in future.

Rumours have swirled that DiCaprio was less than impressed with Eastwood’s working methods, with Dame Judi Dench, DiCaprio’s co-star, offering a view of their time on set. During a royal literary festival, Dench confirmed that Eastwood would be very casual with his direction, often saying “in your own time” instead of “action”, something that would trouble the veteran star: “And then you’d say, right, and get ready to do it again. No, no, no, you didn’t do it again, you only got one go at it.”

“Leo DiCaprio and I did a scene where I was in bed with some papers and things in front of me, no dialogue or anything,” she continued. “So he’s sat here and we were talking and everything, talking about everyday things. Then I said, ‘Are we going to do this scene?’ and Leo said, ‘He’s done it!’. That was it, he’d done it, while we were sitting there.” Dench seemed to enjoy the authoritarian approach, saying the dirctor “doesn’t mess about. You start at nine, and you finish at four-thirty. It’s heaven!”

However, when Eastwood shut down DiCaprio’s request for a second take, with the director claiming the day was now over, things became frosty. Co-star Armie Hammer had an equally difficult time shooting, claiming Eastwood took one of his rehearsals – complete with Hammer holding his script – as his first take and refused to do another.

DiCaprio has never publicly commented on his working relationship with Eastwood, but given his dedication to his craft and intent to envelop himself in his roles, finding the nuances of the characters with his director. There is a very good chance that his time working with Clint Eastwood is over for good, and J. Edgar will remain their one and only collaboration.