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Johnny Depp stars as the scandalously decadent John Wilmot, (Earl of Rochester) a 17th century poet who famously drank and
debauched his way to an early grave, only to earn posthumous critical acclaim for his life's work.
The Libertine follows him through his passionate affair with Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton)to the lampooning of Charles
II (John Malkovich) with his bawdy play.
In Samuel Johnson's epitaph of Wilmot the level of Wilmots scandalous debauchary is such that you can't but love the man.
"In a course of drunken gaiety and gross sensuality, with an avowed contempt of decency and order, a total disregard
to every moral, and a resolute denial of every religious observation, he lived worthless and useless, and blazed out his youth
and health in lavish voluptuousness" a hedonist of the first order.
"The Libertine evokes an atmosphere that combines the dark debauched underbelly of London with the allure and glamour
of the restoration court.
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Main Cast:
Rochester (Johnny Depp)
King Charles II (John Malkovich)
Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton)
Screenplay: Stephen Jeffreys
Based on: The Libertine,
play by Stephen Jeffreys
Director : Laurence Dunmore.
Shane shot a scene as a singing
bard wearing the costume that he
is shown in on this site.
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t's a warts and all adaptation of a bawdy stage play about John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, a notorious 17th-century
figure who died of alcoholism and venereal disease at 33. Johnny Depp stars as the aristocrat who had the talent to have been
a genius but wasted his life with a wild pursuit of drink and sex.
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Photos of the Day on set of "the Libertine" enjoy the photos:
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Quote Johnny Depp, on Rochester's modern-day counterparts:
"...I think he does exist in a lot of different forms. He existed in the form of Jack Kerouac. He existed in the
form of Oscar Wilde, Shane MacGowan, Allen Ginsberg. I could keep going. Even going back to French: Francois Villon, Jean
Cocteau. Yeah, I think there's a lot of Rochester's out there..."
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