Johnny Depp is making one of his next projects a family affair. As reported by BangShowbiz (via Coming Soon), Depp will star alongside his real life love, Vanessa Paradis in Lasse Hallström’s My American Lover. Depp explained that "Vanessa plays the French feminist Simone de Beauvoir and I play her lover Nelson Algren who is real macho.”

The Playlist suggests the film will be based on de Beauvoir’s A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren. De Beauvoir met Algren in 1947 when a mutual friend suggested he be her tour guide in Chicago for a couple of days and they immediately fell in love. When she returned home she sent him love letters filled with information on French social history. 300 of those letters survived and were assembled into this book.

Depp is in the midst of shooting The Tourist with Angelina Jolie and has Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides on deck, so he likely won’t get around to doing My American Lover until 2011. Depp isn’t even the only one involved in this project with a busy schedule. It was just announced that Hallström has assumed directorial duties from Tomas Alfredson for the sex-change film The Danish Girl starring Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow. Curiously that sounds more interesting than My American Lover, but I am looking forward to seeing Depp reunite with his What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Chocolat director.