Johnny Depp to Play Sancho Panza

With the idea of relaunching his shelved project about Don Quixote, director Terry Gilliam confirmed at Cannes that one of his favourite actors, the chameleonic Johnny Depp, would be the hero of his latest attempt to make a movie about the adventures of this ingenious nobleman from La Mancha. Although things were tricky given Depp’s full schedule, he finally agreed. Shooting will begin next year, once Depp has fulfilled his current professional commitments. In the movie Johnny Depp will play a New York advertising agency executive who is magically transported to the La Mancha region of Spain during the Golden Age. Here he meets Don Alonso Quijano, Knight of the Sad Face, who confuses him with his faithful squire Sancho Panza.

Eight years ago, Gilliam attempted to bring the character of Don Quixote to the cinema screen. The film was called The man who killed Don Quijote , and was to star Johnny Depp and his wife, Vanessa Paradis. However, shooting in Spain had to be abandoned due to terrible weather conditions which destroyed sets and also because French actor Jean Rochefort, who was to play the Knight of the Sad Face, had to have an urgent operation on a slipped disk.

This adaptation of Cervantes’ great work will be the third time Depp and Gilliam work together, as they have joined forces to make Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus , a movie which the late Heath Ledger was unable to complete. After a forced script rewrite his character was taken on by several other actors, one of whom was Johnny Depp.