LET SLEEPING CROOKS LIE

JOEL Edgerton passed up the chance to meet the jailed FBI agent he portrays in new film Black Mass, because he didn’t think the felon would appreciate a visit from a guy making him look bad on film.

The Australian actor (pictured in the film with Johnny Depp) plays disgraced law man John Connolly, who masterminded the “unholy alliance” between his agency and notorious Boston gangster James “Whitey” Bulger in the 1970s – and then refused to testify against his childhood friend.

As a result, he was indicted on charges of alerting Bulger and his associates to investigations, falsifying FBI reports to cover their crimes, and accepting bribes. He was charged with additional racketeering-related offences and convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

In 2009, he was sentenced to a further 40 years in prison for second-degree murder. He’s serving his time in Florida, where Edgerton was invited to visit him as he researched the role. But Edgerton said it wouldn’t have been a very genuine thing to do “knowing at some point we have to say, ‘We’re telling our fictionalised version or our true version of a true story. It might be not so nice to go and visit him.’”

Instead, Edgerton met with “the ghosts of these stories”.

“They would come knocking on our door. I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about John. We had a lot of FBI agents who were very opinionated.

“He held a very interesting place in the bureau as a bit of a peacock and somebody walking a highwire act between what they were doing and what Whitey and the guys were doing.”

Edgerton said most of them presumed they were doing the right thing.

“I feel a bit sad for him (John) that he’s the only one that really, really kind of fell down.”