I am now convinced that Johnny Depp doesn't age. The above is part of a collection of photos over at Just Jared that show Depp as John Dillinger in Michael Mann's upcoming gangster flick, Public Enemies. If I didn't know the context, I would've assumed that this was an old picture from some film of the past that I missed. But no, this is the actor filming on his 45th birthday.

Public Enemies is the sure-to-be-awesome Great Depression drama starring Christian Bale as FBI agent Melvin Purvis, who is trying to stop notorious bad boys John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum). But the stars are only the tip of the talent iceberg -- Leelee Sobieski, Billy Crudup, David Wenham, Giovanni Ribisi, Marion Cotillard, Rory Cochrane, Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor ...

The film will hit theaters in July 2009.

Another week has flown by, and it's time for more casting bites, courtesy of Variety:

She might have gotten to play Joan of Arc on the small screen, and get saucy in a Stanley Kubrick film, but now Leelee Sobieski is probably going to make many-a-Johnny Depp admirer jealous. She's been cast as the last girlfriend of John Dillinger - aka Depp - in Michael Mann's Public Enemies. This should make her Polly Hamilton -- a woman who didn't know who he really was, and was with him when he was gunned down.

Meanwhile, actor Jesse Williams is getting to cleanse his big-screen girly fare of the upcoming The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants 2 with Antoine Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest. He will play Eddie Quinlan, a character who is pretty high up on the cast list that boasts Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, and Ellen Barkin. The movie focuses on three unconnected cops who take very different career paths and wind up at "the same deadly location."

Cannes deals may be tepid, but Variety has a whole bunch of new casting notices. Here's part one:

Years ago, one of James Russo's first gigs was as a Convenience Store Robber in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Since then, he's popped up in Beverly Hills Cop, The Blue Iguana, Donnie Brasco, and Paris. Now he has nabbed the part of Walter Dietrich in Michael Mann's Public Enemies. Dietrich was a man who John Dillinger came across while in the Michigan City penitentiary -- he was teaching Dillinger and others "the methods of Herman 'Baron' K. Lamm, a Prussian army officer turned highly successful bank robber."

But that's not the only getaway in this batch. Katie Chonacas, who grabbed a part in The Code last year, has signed on for a supporting role in the Timothy Olyphant and Milla Jovovich flick A Perfect Getaway. There's no word on who she'll play in the film, which focuses on two honeymooners (Steve Zahn and Jovovich) who get stalked by some killers (Olyphant and Kiele Sanchez).

Lastly, in this batch, there's youngin' Sterling Beaumon. The kid, who has popped up in shows like 7th Heaven and Heroes, has scored himself the starring role in a big-screen adaptation of R.L. Stine's Mostly Ghostly. The film focuses on a kid name Max (Beaumon), who has ghostly friends. The film also stars LiLo's little sister Ali Lohan.

Can you believe it's almost May? Another month of 2008 is almost over, and we've got more casting news, courtesy of Variety:

• New York, I Love You already has a flipping huge and intrigue-inducing cast that ranges from Ethan Hawke to Julie Christie. Now we've got two more players in the mix. Both Carla Gugino (Sin City) and Goran Visnjic (Elektra) have signed on for a segment directed by Andrei Zvyagintsev. There's no word on what this segment will focus on, but I'll go out on a limb and say it'll feature some sort of love in New York City.
• Then there's a young actress by the name of Emilie De Ravin. If you're one of those Lost fiends out there, she's Claire Littleton in the series. On the big screen side of things, she had a lead gig in The Hills Have Eyes. But now she gets to deal with some Public Enemies. While enemies usually aren't a desirable sort of group to hang with, this melange has Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, Billy Crudup, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff, Rory Cochrane, David Wenham ... basically, a ton of great actors, plus a bunch of beloved indie boys from the '90s. According to IMDb, she'll play Anna Patzke.
• Finally, there's the girl who made the world of Gossip Girl all the more intriguing -- Ms. Serena van der Woodsen herself, Blake Lively. She's picked up a lead role in the upcoming film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which stars Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder. There's no word on who she will play in the feature.

A new week, and a new round of casting nibblets courtesy of Variety:

• First up, there is Shawn Hatosy -- who has been around for years in films like Outside Providence and Factory Girl. He has scored a gig as FBI agent John Madala in the upcoming crime flick Public Enemies. Madala is a guy who looked in on Richard Nixon in Miami back in the day, and who later became the head of security at Garden State Park. But this is the story of John Dillinger, J. Edgar Hoover, and the rest, so we're talking old-school FBI days.
  
• Then we've got Oscar Nuñez, the man who plays Oscar Martinez on The Office. He's picked up a role in the upcoming family film, Beethoven: The Reel Story. Yes, unfortunately, I'm not talking about some lovely Ludwig, but rather more St. Bernard chaos. Will the madness ever end? This time around, the dog gets to become a superstar and be the focus of a kidnapping plot. Also up, he's got a gig in that romcom The Proposal, which has Sandra Bullock forcing Ryan Reynolds to marry her for a green card. There's no word on who he will play in either project.
  

This movie either has Oscar winner all over it, or will massively collapse under the incredible power of its own cast. Variety has announced the latest addition to Public Enemies and it is the brilliant Billy Crudup, who will be playing legendary FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. There cannot be another actor working who is less physically similar to Hoover, and yet I have no doubt Crudup can completely embody that controversial figure.

Given that the film has already been shooting for several weeks, I wonder if Crudup is really making a glorified cameo. I am always surprised when movies add a cast member so late in the game, but maybe he simply needed to be freed from Watchmen duty.

Stephen Lang has also joined the cast as Winstead, the Texas Ranger who joins the manhunt for John Dillinger and his gang. He's nearly a Michael Mann regular, having appeared in Manhunter, Band of the Hand, and the series Crime Story. Public Enemies is set for release in 2009. And we'll either be saying "Of course it was good, look who was in it!" or "It's a mystery how it failed with that line up."

I want to say that Michael Mann's Public Enemies cannot possibly get any better -- but this could be one of those movies where so much awesome has come together that the universe must destroy it in order to keep us all in balance.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that David Wenham and Stephen Graham have joined the cast -- which is led by Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, and Christian Bale as the famed FBI Agent, Melvin Purvis, who hunted him down. These two actors can do no wrong, and it is going to be a lot of fun watching them go head to head.

Wenham, who was last seen as Dilios in 300, will be playing Pete Pierpont, a member of Dillinger's gang who is violently opposed to authority. Graham will be playing the famous gangster, Baby Face Nelson. They round out Dillinger's gang, which already includes Marion Cotillard, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff, and John Ortiz. (Is the Reporter a misprint, by the way? Wikipedia lists a Henry Pierpont in Dillinger's gang, not a Pete.)

If you don't know who John Ortiz is yet, you probably will soon enough. He's had roles in Miami Vice, El Cantante, and American Gangster, and he's also got a handful of movies on the way, from Pride and Glory to Two Lovers. Now MTV is giving him huge praise -- they have just listed him as the man who will become the next great supporting star -- following in the footsteps of Paul Giamatti, Chris Cooper, and John C. Reilly. The site recently talked with the actor, and found out that he has nabbed himself a role in the retro gangster flick Public Enemies.

When production gears up in March, Ortiz will play Sicilian gangster Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti -- a man who rose from small-time thief, to one of Al Capone's right-hand men, to the frontman for Scarface's gang when Al was sent away for income tax evasion. But these are big shoes for the actor to fill even behind the camera. In the past, Nitti has been played by Bruce Gordon, Sylvester Stallone, Stanley Tucci, and the creepy Billy Drago.

But if you want more action and machismo, and less drama, he's also gearing up for the next installment of The Fast and the Furious.

If you've seen Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, you've seen one heck of a great performance. But will we see another from the actress, or was playing Edith Piaf the role of a lifetime? While I can't imagine her ever making such a huge transformation or giving such a notable, career-defining performance again, I'm excited to see where her Oscar nomination takes her and I hope that she can at least follow it up with some interesting parts. We've already heard that her next major role will be in Rob Marshall's Nine, an adaptation of the musical inspired by Fellini's 8½. After that, she could be heading to Chicago (not Marshall's Chicago, the real city) for Michael Mann's Public Enemies. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Cotillard is in negotiations to play Billie Frechette, the torch singer girlfriend of John Dillinger, who will be played by Johnny Depp. Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, Stephen Dorff and Jason Clarke have also joined the cast.

As Monika relayed last week, Billie will be a major character in the plot of Public Enemies, which also stars Christian Bale. The movie will reportedly balance between Dillinger's crime story and his love life while also focusing on FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale), who famously pursued and caught Dillinger in the mid-1930s. It is interesting to note that Public Enemies will be another singing role for Cotillard, who did not actually perform any of the Piaf songs in La Vie en Rose. But while the actress is not a born singer nor a long-trained one, she did sing in in the 2001 French film Les Jolies Choses (Pretty Things) and will be singing in Nine. Also, if you think Cotillard is suddenly getting work just because of her La Vie en Rose acclaim, you're mistaken. You may have seen her in either of her two English-language movies (Ridley Scott's A Good Year and Tim Burton's Big Fish), in any of the three Taxi movies, as the female lead in the sweet Amelie wannabe Love Me If You Dare, in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amelie follow-up, A Very Long Engagement or in any of the many other French films in which she has appeared.