Last month, Julia Roberts swore to a room full of journalists she would not be starring in the romantic comedy The Mexican.

Producer Walter Parkes begs to differ.

"Julia has definitely signed and so has Brad Pitt," says Parkes, whose films include Saving Private Ryan and American Beauty.

"Brad will play a hitman who is sent to Mexico to retrieve a priceless hand-made gun. Julia is his girlfriend.

"It's a Coen Brothers-style movie about the irrationality of love."

Nicholson, Penn and ... Popoff?

Okanagan actor Robert Popoff got quite a surprise after an audacious act.

He saw that a movie called The Pledge was schedule to film in B.C. and sent his resume directly to the L.A. casting agent. Weeks later, he got a call to fly to Vancouver to audition for a small role of a prisoner who gets beaten by police who recapture him.

"I thanked the casting agent, but said I didn't think I could make it in. I didn't tell him I didn't think it was worth the plane fare," explains Popoff from his ranch in the Okanagan.

"Then he asked if I knew that the director of the movie was Sean Penn and the scene was with Jack Nicholson. Needless to say, I was on the next plane."

Though Popoff insists his audition was a bust, Penn liked his look and cast him.

"While we were waiting for our scene, Jack talked about his love for fishing. It was a very short scene, but it ended with him giving me the famous Jack smile.

"Jack plays a burned-out cop who gets reinvigorated when he starts investigating the murder of a young woman."

Popoff says Penn may be a tiger in public, but the actor/director is a pussycat on his own sets.

"Sean ate with the crew and extras and he addressed all by name. His wife (Robin Wright-Penn) and mother (Eileen Ryan) are in the movie and he has a lot great character actors like Sam Shepard and Mickey Rourke in cameo roles."


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