French actress Marion Cotillard, nominated for an Academy Award for best performance by an actress for her work in "Mome, La" poses for photographs in Beverly Hills, California January 22, 2008. [Agencies]

French star Marion Cotillard is in talks to star alongside Hollywood icon Johnny Depp in a Depression-era crime drama made by veteran director Michael Mann, it was reported Monday.

Cotillard, who is up for an Oscar at next month's Academy Awards for her portrayal of tragic singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie En Rose," is being tipped to play the girlfriend of bankrobber John Dillinger played by Depp, reports said.

The film is an adaptation of Bryan Burroughs' book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-1934."

British actor Christian Bale, star of "Batman Begins" and the upcoming "The Dark Knight," is in talks to play a detective hunting Dillinger.

Dillinger was one of the most well-known crime figures from the early 1930s, responsible for a string of daring heists before eventually being shot dead by police in a Chicago ambush in 1934 aged 31.