JohnnyDepp-Zone.com

Bill Nighy took a little time from promoting G-Force to tell MTV about his role in Gore Verbinski’s Rango, which stars Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Ned Beatty and Harry Dean Stanton. Rango is “a CG animation/motion-capture hybrid movie about household pets on a dangerous cowboy adventure,” reports MTV’s Eric Ditzian; the actors completed their portion of the work earlier this year. Nighy plays the villain “who does battle” with Johnny Depp’s Rango, who is an animated lizard.

“I play the bad guy,” Nighy declared. “I play a very, very bad guy. I’m a rattlesnake and I am a gun-slinging assassin. I literally have a Gatling gun–I have a machine gun in my tail–so I can just spray the whole town. I can kill everybody whenever I wish. I’m brought in by the corrupt sheriff to sort things out. It’s quite cool.”

John Logan wrote the Rango script, and MTV reports that the drawings for the animation were done by Verbinski’s collaborator from the Pirates of the Caribbean films. “Crash, the artist who did all the drawings for Pirates, he’s done the creatures,” Nighy said. “He’s brilliant.”

The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the news; you can read more on the Porch forum. Rango is scheduled to be released in 2011.–Part-Time Poet

Acclaimed Serbian director Emir Kusturica has cast Johnny Depp in the role of Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa in his film, Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers; the female lead will be Salma Hayek. Kusturica talked about his film in an exclusive interview with Simonida Milojkovic of Blic Online. The director had just returned from a visit to the Depp home in France, where he was a guest of Johnny and Vanessa Paradis. “Johnny and I have been friends for a long time. We were sitting in his house, talking for a long time, refreshing our memories,” Kusturica said. “When I showed him the script written by Gordan Mihic, Johnny said he wanted the role without even reading it.”

Emir Kusturica previously directed Johnny Depp in the award-winning Arizona Dream, early in JD’s career. When Milojkovic asked what it would cost to hire JD to play Pancho Villa, Kusturica replied, “He is the king of Hollywood. He is currently the most expensive actor. The question ‘how much does it cost’ is such a typical question among Serbian people. He acts for 20 million dollars, but he also acts for one million,” the director explained. “He built his career working with directors he likes, having faith in film as art. Pirates of the Caribbean came later.”

Filming of Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman with Six Fingers was originally planned for this autumn, but now will be pushed back to late 2010 or 2011 because of JD’s other film commitments. The Zone thanks Emma for sharing the article; you can read more on the News & Views forum. –Part-Time Poet