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Newest items will be on the Last Page
Found by Emma at the Herald Sun
July 7, 2005Johnny Visit? It Deppends
By CLAIRE SUTHERLAND and NUI TE KOHA
Don't hold your breath for a sighting of Johnny Depp in Melbourne.
Weekend reports that he is coming to town to make the film version of best-selling book Shantaram may be premature.
Shantaram author Greg Roberts has just put the finishing touches to his script for the film, and tells The Back Room none of it is set in Melbourne -- where Roberts was brought up before drifting into a life of heroin addiction and crime.
"Having been misquoted myself 70 or 80 times now, I think there's a high order of probability that Johnny was also misquoted," Roberts says.
Roberts escaped from Pentridge Prison, where he was serving a sentence for armed robbery, in 1980. He went to Bombay, where he set up a makeshift medical clinic in his slum home and became embroiled with the Bombay mafia before going to Afghanistan, where he operated as a gunrunner. He was eventually caught in Germany and extradited to Australia, where he served out his sentence and worked on his 900-page memoir.
The film rights were sold to Johnny Depp and Warner Bros last year and Roberts travelled to Depp's Bahamas property to tweak the script earlier this year.
"The screenplay is in the hands of the producer, Graham King, Warner Brothers and Johnny Depp, and has provoked an excited reaction. Script conferencing is under way, and major announcements about the project are expected very soon," Roberts says.
Found by Emma at the Sunday Herald Sun
July 3, 2005
Inside EntertainmentDepp impact Down Under
Johnny Depp is returning to Australia to steal hearts with his next movie project
Johnny Depp, arguably the world's most popular actor, has confirmed he will make the movie version of Shantaram in Australia next year. Depp snapped up the rights to Shantaram, the 2003 autobiographical novel by Melbourne's so called "Gentleman Bandit", Gregory David Roberts, (inset) and will play the lead in the movie.
"We'll definitely have to film in Melbourne," Depp said on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, where he has been filming two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels back to back. "I've been to Melbourne before. I was on Hey Hey It's Saturday with that puppet. What was his name? Yeah, Ossie Ostrich."
That was back in 1988. A then 25 year old Depp was the star of the TV series 21 Jump Street and he appeared on Hey Hey as a judge on the Red Faces segment.
Now 42, he is set to earn $46 million for the two Pirates sequels, in which he is reprising his role as Captain Jack Sparrow. The original Pirates movie, The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) , earned him a nomination for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award and vaulted him to superstar status.
Gregory David Roberts is a former heroin user who turned to bank robberies to support his habit in the 1970s.
"He became known as the Gentleman Bandit in Australia because he never killed anyone, at least not in bank robberies," Depp said. "He's written this absolutely beautiful, poetic, allegorical, super thick, 1000 page novel that tore the top of my head off when I read it.
"It's an intense read. I was astounded and in fact we just got our first draft of the screenplay and it's very, very exciting. It's going to be great."
Following a series of robberies, Roberts eventually was captured and sentenced to a lengthy jail term. But after two years he escaped from Melbourne's Pentridge Prison, beginning an odyssey that took him to New Zealand, India, Afghanistan and Germany, where he was finally recaptured and extradited back to Australia.
"He lived in the slums of Bombay where he was sort of a slum doctor and took care of people for 10 years, but he also got involved with the Bombay Mafia and was making black market passports," Depp said. "He survived for 10 years on the run."
The movie version of Shantaram is likely to be released in 2007. Depp's next release is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (opening September 1) , based on the novel by Roald Dahl, in which he plays Willy Wonka.
From the Union
(excerpt)
Readers' corner
May 30, 2005A book to watch for: I have a book recommendation: "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts. It's roughly a novel based on a true story about a man who escapes from a maximum security prison in New Zealand and travels to India on a false passport. However, that brief description does not do it justice. It is fascinating, detailed, worldly, profound ... this book has blown me away. When was the last time you underlined passages in a novel because the sentiment you just read was something you wanted to remember or something you had never thought about before? The richly detailed language about India made me feel as if I'd been there, but the themes of "the meaning of life" and "what are we here for" will stay with you long after you've finished the last page.
Reading it, I thought this would make a great movie, but Johnny Depp had the thought before me, optioning the novel shortly after its release. He will play the lead character, Linbaba, (that's the kiwi's Indian nickname) in the film. The Web site gives you a good idea of what the book is like, including a lot of comments by the author. It's www.shantaram.com on the Web.
From the Times of India
Shantaram's storyAdd to Clippings
POLITICALLY INCORRECT/SHOBHAA DE[ SUNDAY, MAY 29, 2005 01:19:02 AM ]
Surf 'N' Earn -Sign innow
Nobody does it better than Shantaram. There are authors and authors. Some sell. Some don't. Some win awards. Most don't. But there aren't too many successful authors who could also be equally successful actors. Gregory David Roberts is one of them. A writer so sure of his persona, story and craft, he doesn't hesitate or flinch for a second while narrating his extraordinary tale. A tale that is as much about Mumbai as it's about him. But then, how many authors have lived Roberts' life?As the flap of his 936-page book reveals, Shantaram, the novel, is based on the experiences of the author, who in 1978 committed a series of robberies while addicted to heroin. Sentenced to 19 years imprisonment, he escaped from the front wall of the maximum security prison in broad daylight, to become the most wanted man on the run. He survived this life for 10 years. A large chunk of it was spent in a Mumbai slum, where he worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner and street soldier for a mafia don. Phew!
Shantaram, it turns out, was my neighbour. Pity we didn't run into each other then. This is what I told myself as Gregory David Roberts and I stood at my balcony looking out at the slum — his slum — across the bay. He pointed to a tree on the edge of the water, "That's where my jhopdi used to be. And right there was where I ran my free medical clinic." Roberts is currently in Mumbai completing the screenplay for the Hollywood film based on Shantaram, starring Johnny Depp (who won over Russell Crowe). Roberts believed Depp would make a better Shantaram. Crowe was not amused.
It's impossible to disassociate Roberts from Shantaram (that was the name given to him in Mumbai). With his waist-length blond hair and startling blue eyes, he cuts quite a figure. And knows it. Tough and rugged in appearance, but refined and soft-spoken in speech, Roberts is fully aware of his personal charisma. When he recounts chunks of his life as an ex-con, especially the brutal beatings he survived in Mumbai's notorious Arthur Road jail, one begins to wonder how he could convert something as horrific into pages and pages of the most eloquent, compelling prose.
Today, Roberts is on a roll. He's a much-in-demand speaker on the international lecture circuit, commanding an impressive fees. Depp is now family (a customised Enfield was being shipped out from a Mumbai garage to the star as a birthday gift). And Hollywood calls constantly. None of this seems to affect the man. Talk of walking on the wild side, could anything get wilder? And yet, Roberts is like a pastor today. A man who has found peace and love within. Of course, he still performs. And performs superbly. A lot like Vikram Seth, who also knows instinctively how to mesmerise his awestruck audiences at book readings.
As veteran writer-performer Dominique Lapierre told me years ago, that to attract reader attention outside a book store, an author should be prepared to sing, dance, jump and shout. "Don't feel shy, it's your book. You've worked hard to write it. Now you must work harder to sell it."
There have been a few over-rated books on Mumbai. Most have been pretty bogus. Mumbai is hard to capture. That's what makes it so fascinating. A recent best-seller may have come close, but the attempt remains self-conscious, over-written and fake. It needed an Australian to get it right. You know why? Because Roberts had no choice. Either he understood the violent rhythms of Mumbai, or he got killed. His very survival depended on it. When your life is on the line, you learn fast. And if you live to tell the tale, man, you better do a bloody good job of it. As Shantaram has. Danger can be most creative. Most seductive. If you confront it head on and don't blink, that's courage. If you convert your encounter with death into a best seller, that's genius.
From the Calcutta Telegraph
Slice of Mumbai for Depp
CHANDRIMA S. BHATTACHARYA
Johnny Depp: Cut for the roleMumbai, May 15: The first time he was tortured at Mumbai’s Arthur Road prison, his face was turned upwards. The next time he was tortured with his face down.
“I was lying in a pool of blood. I could see it because I was lying face down. I thought I was going to drown in my own blood,” Gregory David Roberts says, smiling. “Then I thought it was wonderful material! Only if I survived.”
Roberts will be turning that “wonderful material” into screenplay over the next 10 days. Ensconced in Mumbai, the city that made him what he is today — the city he fell in love with, “like with a woman”.
This is the Australian scholar-turned-robber-turned-author’s second visit to Mumbai after Shantaram, his novel on the city and his own bizarre life, was published last year. The book is to be made into a film by Warner Bros, with Johnny Depp in the lead.
Initially, Russell Crowe had been considered, but Roberts said no. Why?
“Both are great guys, both very articulate and well-read,” Roberts tells his spellbound audience, which includes members of the Page Three set: actor Kittu Gidwani, theatre personality Dolly Thakore, actor Heeba Shah, Kal Ho Na Ho director Nikhil Advani and rising star Ayesha Takia.
“But there are elements of Johnny’s character that are best-suited to India. The actor has to love India the way I do — the slightest amount of condescension would kill it.”
He denies he glorifies the slum life in Mumbai where he had landed up as a fugitive from Australia. He set up a clinic at a Colaba slum but also worked as a forger and smuggler for the mafia, apart from doing bit roles in films.
“It is wrong to think of slums as only places of misery. There’s a great sense of liberation there,” he says.
And once he finishes his screenplay, he will probably make straight for his earlier hangouts — the joints in the seedy parts of Colaba, the drug dens, perhaps the prisons?
It’s in prisons, here and elsewhere, that the burly 53-year-old man, with his hair tied in a long ponytail like a WWF wrestler, has had his most poignant experiences
March News from Gregory David Roberts:NOW IN March I'm back in Bombay, and working on the screenplay for the movie of Shantaram. I'll have an update on all that's going on in the Island City, and a progress report on my own work, in the next couple of weeks. Until then, if you're in the city, stop in at LEOPOLDS or THEOBROMA, on the Colaba Causeway, and we'll have a chai or a cup of coffee. Love and best wishes, until next time, from Greg.
More on Shantaram's creation HERE
Once Australia's most wanted man talks about drugs, love and Johnny Depp
From ABC South Coast WA
Friday, 18 February 2005
Presenter: Clare ValleyThe Gregory Roberts story.
“I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison,” admits former number one on Australia's most wanted list and author Gregory Roberts.
Published in 2004, Gregory Robert’s book Shantarma will now be produced into a Hollywood movie and A-list actor, Johhny Depp is playing Gregory David Roberts.
Leading up to the auctions for the rights of Shantarma, it became clear that “Johnny (Depp) was someone who could bring the necessary sensitivity to the part,” said Roberts.
Gregory was also delighted that Johnny said some kind and very sweet things about the book. “Apart from enjoying he had seen it through cinematic eyes... he’d seen it as an actor, a director and a producer.” said Roberts.
Shantaram is a novel based on the life of the author, Gregory David Roberts. If you haven’t worked out why that name sounds familiar this may help.
In 1978 Roberts committed a series of robberies and was sentenced to nineteen years’ imprisonment at Victoria’s Pentridge prison.
July 1980 he escaped over the front in broad daylight, becoming one of Australia’s most wanted men for what turned out to be the next ten years.
Robert's journey took him to New Zealand, Asia, Africa, and Europe, but his home for most of those years was Bombay. Gregory established a free medical clinic for slum-dwellers, and worked as a counterfeiter, smuggler, gunrunner, and street soldier for one of the most charismatic branches of the Bombay mafia.
Interesting life, interesting book…to find out more listen to the interview with Clare valley on South Coast mornings
Audio: Gregory David Roberts
To listen online, you'll need the Real Audio. You can download Real player free from the website (please note that you only need the Free RealOne Player -- you don't have to purchase RealOne premium).
Emma found this story at the Herald Sun
Thursday, February 10It's cool bahamas
By Claire Sutherland and Nui Te KohaMelbourne author Greg Roberts is off to the Bahamas in June to be a house guest of Johnny Depp.
Depp is to play the lead role of Lin in the movie version of Roberts' 940-page memoir, Shantaram.
The author will spend six weeks at Chateau Depp putting the finishing touches on the first draft of the screenplay while Depp works on Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3.
Depp and an alliance of United States production companies won an auction for the rights to Roberts' best-seller for a reported $2.5 million.
Roberts, speaking from New Zealand, where he is on a speaking tour, says Depp impressed him with his integrity, insistence that Roberts write the screenplay and, of course, the highest bid.
Roberts spent three weeks with Depp in London after the auction.
"He is an almost unbearably cool human being," Roberts says. "Apart from my dad and my brother, he's the nicest guy I've ever met. What you see is what you get."
Roberts, who changed his name from Smith, was serving a 23-year sentence for armed robbery at Pentridge Prison when he escaped in 1980. He fled to India and ended up working as a forger for the Bombay mafia, all the while running a makeshift slum medical clinic. He also had a stint as a gunrunner in Afghanistan, an actor in Bollywood and eventually worked in a high security jail in Germany.
He was extradited to Australia and served out his sentence.
The film version of his book starts with his arrival in India.
Interiors will be shot in Los Angeles and Morocco is likely to double for Afghanistan. Depp and Roberts are pushing for Indian scenes to be shot in India, but Roberts says he doesn't care if Depp plays the character as an Australian.
"He wants to," Roberts says. "I've told him that's not important to me. It doesn't matter if the character is Australian or Chinese.
I wrote what I believe to be a universal character."
Cutting the book down to a two-hour screenplay has been a challenge, particularly with Depp's insistence that so much of the story remain intact.
"When you're writing a book it's a question of what you put in," Roberts says. "When you're writing a screenplay it's a question of what you leave out. I was more savage with that than Johnny was. He was saying, 'No, no, no, you can't leave that out, I love that part', so we had quite spirited discussions about it."
