Keith Richards to play a salty sea dog

If you stood Johnny Depp next to our beloved Keith at a red carpet event you could be forgiven for wondering how they were cast as father and son.

Oct 27 2004

If you stood Johnny (agelessly gorgeous, soft brown, come to bed eyes) next to our beloved Keith (wrinkly rock fossil, red-edged, just-left-the-bar eyes) at a red carpet event you could be forgiven for wondering how on earth anyone came up with the idea of casting them as father and son. That is until you are told that Richards will be playing Depps' father in Pirates of the Caribbean: Treasures of the Lost Abyss.

Suddenly not only does it make perfect sense, but it becomes a truly inspired choice. Depp admitted that his Oscar-nominated portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the original Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl had been inspired by none other than the Rolling Stones guitarist himself.

In an interview with the BBC Depp said: 'I was thinking about the pirates of the 18th century, about how they were the rocks stars of their day. So I thought: Who's the greatest rock and roll star who ever lived? And to me, it's Keith Richards hands down. Keith is a bit of a pirate himself!'

Resplendent in beaded dreadlocks and kohl, Depp played Sparrow as a purring East End dandy in Curse of the Black Pearl. The plot? Jack forges an uneasy alliance with an earnest blacksmith (Bloom) to thwart a gang of hexed buccaneers headed by nefarious Barbossa (Rush), who've kidnapped a fair maiden (Knightley) in a bid to lift an Aztec curse.

Although this will be Richards' acting debut, he's always got fellow Stones member and lovable rogue, Mick Jagger - also an actor (Performance) and producer (Enigma) - with whom to perfect the slurring, swarthiness and, er, swashbuckling.

Treasures of the Abyss begins shooting next February.

Aleida Strowger