johnny depp, pictures, films, biography, life

Whereabouts: Johnny Depp

In addition to possibly preparing for a role in a Tim Burton

adaptation of "Sweeney Todd" (see below), Depp is negotiating the film

rights to Scottish author James Meeks' novel The People's Act of Love,

reports The Scotsman. Publisher's Weekly describes the novel thusly:

Set during the waning days of the Russian revolution, Meek's

utterly absorbing novel (after The Museum of Doubt) captivates with

its depiction of human nature in all its wartime extremes. In 1919,

the remote Siberian town of Yazyk contains a strange brew of

humanity: the docile members of a mystical Christian sect, whose

longing for purity drives them to self-mutilation; a small outfit

of Czech troops, marooned by the civil war and led by the mad

cocaine-snorting Captain Matula; and "the widow" Anna Petrovna,

whose passion for worldly things (e.g., photography and men)

isolates her from the devout townspeople. When the charismatic

revolutionary, Samarin, trudges into town with a harrowing tale of

escape from a distant labor camp and a dangerous philosophy, Yazyk

becomes a theater of bloodshed and betrayal as well as heroism and

compassion. Using the town as a microcosm of the larger war, Meek

illuminates both perverted ideology and irrepressible humanity.

With confident prose, layered storytelling and prodigious

imagination, he combines scenes of heart-pounding action and

jaw-dropping revelations with moments of quiet tension and sly

humor. This original, literary page-turner succeeds both with its

credible psychological detail and in its grandeur and sweep.

Sounds fantastic! Depp's current release The Libertine (pictured