Johnny Depp, My American Dream Lover

What better way to start your Monday than with a nice big dose of Johnny Depp? News has surfaced that the world’s most desirable man and his fair lady of 12 years, Vanessa Paradis will star in their first feature film together (Lost in La Mancha doesn’t count).

The title of the film that will bring the couple together on screen is reportedly My American Dream, although the man himself calls it My American Lover. Either way we’re intrigued. Depp told BangShowbiz, “Vanessa plays the French feminist Simone De Beauvoir and I play her lover Nelson Algren, who is real macho.” Can you handle a macho Depp?

Simone de Beauvoir was of course a French author, Left Bank existentialist philosopher, feminist and social theorist. Her most famous work was The Second Sex but she wrote prolifically in many genres. Nelson Algren was also a writer: she met him in his home city of Chicago while travelling and the two began an affair (she and Jean-Paul Satre were open about their affairs but retained their longstanding emotional and intellectual bond throughout) and travelled together through Latin America in 1949.

The film is to be directed by Lasse Hallström, who has worked with Depp before in 1993’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and 2000’s Chocolat. Currently there’s no news on who will write the screenplay but it’s thought that it will rely heavily on her letters which are collected in A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren for source material.

While Paradis is better known for her music she has a couple of films in the works, L’arnacoeur (aka Heartbreaker) is due out in the UK this June and a 3D animation Un Monstre à Paris has a French release of 2011. Depp, on the other hand, is currently filming The Tourist with Angelina Jolie (no marriage cracks have yet been observed) and has the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean on the horizon.

Whilst we’re pondering the wonders of Johnny Depp you should check out the video for ‘I Put a Spell on You’, the charity single to help Haiti. Shane MacGowan, Nick Cave, Chrissie Hynde and Bobby Gillespie provide vocals and if you keep watching until the end you’ll see Depp rocking out with a guitar playing a pretty cool solo. The song will be available to download Sunday and you can pre-order it from 7digital or by texting SPELL to 78789, the text costs £1.50. Enjoy.