Johnny Depp has sipped the Latin flavour for a while now, is it really that much of a surprise to hear from Variety that he's in advanced talks to star as Pancho Villa in the Spanish language production Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers?- What a title, huh? It's certainly not a stretch to see him as The Mexican Revolutionist, I don't think. He's better looking than Pancho ever was. After all Pancho more physically resembles Eli Wallach's Tuco, the "ugly" part of Sergio Leone's masterpiece but put the sombrero on Depp, and a fuller tache with some dirty make-up and he's half-way there. Depp will be acting in Spanish, which is the ballsy Depp we all love... If nothing else, it gets Depp the hell out of the Pirates of the Caribbean/Tim Burton doldrums he's been in for a while. The more Jack Sparrow was pushed into the two Pirates sequels, the less interesting he was (and the movies themselves subsequently) and apart from his amazing performance in Sweeney Todd, I can't say I enjoyed his take on Willy Wonka or his take (from the look/trailers) on "The Mad Hatter" in Alice in Wonderland. Loved him as John Dillinger though, and it's still the Best Leading Man performance I've seen in 2009. Emir Kusturica will direct the Pancho movie. His long time collaborator Gordan Mihic has already adapted James Carlos Blak's novel The Friends of Pancho Villa which "recounts how Villa and his compadres had a great time fighting and robbing the rich, but also dancing, partying and making love!" Doesn't sound like the worse gig ever... The movie will shoot in Mexico, where Panho is a national treasure. Johnny Depp was in Kusturica's 1993 movie Arizona Dreamwhich nearly every blogger loves but shamefully, I'm not really aware of it. Strangely in a world where we have Antonio Banderas (though he did play Pancho in a t.v. movie six years ago)... Kusturica is willing to wait until 2011 when Depp will be free after making POTC 4 and The Tourist to film this movie. Salma Hayek, naturally, will co-star as the Six Fingered Woman.
