Zap2it is reporting that Javier Bardem has departed the cast of Nine. The film version of the Broadway musical is loosely based on Frederico Fellini's 1963 film, 8 1/2. The No Country For Old Men star is citing "general exhaustion after a year of acting, promotion and the award season gauntlet" as the reason for bowing out of the production. He was to have played Guido Contini in the movie musical.

I'm not familiar with the musical, but if the character is based on Fellini's Guido Anselmi, then the departure may seem somewhat familiar. In the movie, Guido is a frustrated director who encounters pressure from every corner of his life. The opening of the film shows him "escaping" a symbolic traffic jam by simply floating above it. That's an incredibily simplified summary, but the basic idea is probably one that Bardem could relate to.

At the other end of the spectrum, Ewan McGregor recently signed on for another movie, because he had to fill up that dead space between lunch and dinner with something. This time it's a supporting role in the upcoming DaVinci Code sequel, The ReVincining: This Time It's Personal. Actually, it's called Angels & Demons, and he'll be playing Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca, described as a "close aide to the recently deceased pope."

McGregor is so reliably prolific as to be nearly omnipresent. He's in almost everything. I wouldn't be surprised if he showed up in that Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants sequel as one of the sisters. Or the pants. If you reached the end of 2004 and felt like something was just a little "off" about that year, it's because no new Ewan McGregor movies came out. Aside from that anomalous year, he has been putting out at least one--and sometimes four or five--movies a year since before Trainspotting brought him to the moviegoing public's attention.

Angels & Demons is expected to begin production this June in Europe, so if McGregor has a spare moment when he's not making another movie, perhaps he could take a muffin basket to the recuperating Bardem.

Tags: Angels & Demons, Ewan McGregor, Javier Bardem, Nine