Assuming he can successfully remove all traces of blue paint from his time playing Dr Manhattan on Watchmen, Billy Crudup has lined up a rather tasty follow-up role, in Michael Mann's1930's set gangster flick Public Enemies, opposite Johnny Depp's legendary outlaw John Dillinger and Christian Bale's FBI agent Melvin Purvis.
Crudup will play long-serving FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, and we suspect we know why he's been cast. Hoover is, after all, history's most famous cross dresser* after Dame Edna, and Crudup looked pretty as a picture wearing women's clothes in Stage Beauty, so he should fit right in.
Stephen Lang, who's currently working on Avatar but who previously worked for Michael Mann waaaaay back on **Manhunter **and who was a regular on his Crime Story series, will also star as Winstead, head of the Texas Rangers in search of Dillinger's gang.
Shooting is already underway, chiefly in Wisconsin, and you can expect to see the finished film next year.
*There is some question over whether he was a transvestite, gay or both. But we prefer to go with every comedian ever on this than those snooty "historians". Like, what do they know?