It really is a busy week for Amber Heard. Having signed on for John Carpenter's The Ward earlier this week, she is also now in talks to star alongside Johnny Depp in a film based on the Hunter S. Thompson novel The Rum Diary. She will play the female lead and part of the love triangle which Depp's character hard-drinking journalist Paul Kemp, becomes imbroiled in. The adaptation is being written and directed by Withnail & I's Bruce Robinson.
Heard's role as title character in **All The Boys Love Mandy Lane **drew attention to the young actress and since then the offers of work have been pouring in, with The Rum Diaries set to be her sixth filmin production in 2009. She will also join the cast of horror/ comedy Zombieland, but this time only cameoing as a love interest who becomes a member of the flesh eating undead.
Having beaten off reported competition from the likes of Scarlett Johansson and Keira Knightley - who may have had issues with the nudity the role entails - Heard will play Chenault, the free-spirited lover of the as-yet uncast fellow journalist Sanderson, who begins an affair with Kemp.
Depp, a friend of the legendary writer, has been keen to follow up on his role in the Thompson classic Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, and has been looking to get The Rum Diary made since 2003.