Tom Waits has found time between completing his forthcoming studio album and getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to take on his latest acting role: Virgil, “a terrifying giant pitch-black swallow” in Dutch artist/director Rosto’s new animated musical about “a troubled boy who fights the destructive force of an all-devouring monster,” aka The Monster of Nix. “Tom Waits was always the main inspiration for the dark and theatrical appearance of Virgil,” said Rosto. “But I had never expected to actually have the privilege to work with Tom. The results are gobsmacking.”

What’s more, Terry Gilliam, Waits’ longtime collaborator and director of his performance as the Devil in 2009’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, has also joined the voice cast of Nix, playing a reclusive forest ranger. “[Gilliam] felt rather uncomfortable about the singing,” Rosto revealed. “And that’s exactly how I wanted this character to sound: scared and insecure. The poor bastard suffered but I got exactly what I wanted.”

The Monster of Nix, a 30-minute short with music composed by Rosto and score contributions by the Metropole Orkest, The Residents, and French indie rockers The Dø, is set to premiere at the Annecy Animated Film Festival in France this summer. For now, you can preview an illustration of Waits’ character above and watch a short teaser clip featuring the voice of Gilliam below:

The English National Opera, the same company that will host Nico Muhly’s forthcoming opera based on an Internet murder plot, have recruited Monty Python director/artist/madman Terry Gilliam for a new opera based on Hector Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, the Guardian reports (via Vulture). Though I must confess that I’ve yet to delve into opera much, ENO music director Edward Gardner is doing wonders to remedy my mild aversion to the genre by bringing names like Muhly, Gilliam, and Anthony Minghella into the fold.

“You have to create a world for The Damnation of Faust, and that is something Gilliam is incredibly brilliant at doing – if not several worlds at once,” Gardner said of the disaster-prone director, who, in addition to his inimitable work with Python, directed Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Brazil, and the late Heather Ledger’s final film.

So how does one recruit a guy like Gilliam for such an ambitious project? “I crept up on [Gilliam],” Gardner said, “so that he eventually found himself in a situation where he was committed.”

Today in epic 1970s British comedy news, we learn that Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy), a comedic oratorio based on Monty Python’s Life of Brian, exists (via /Film UK). The 90-minute show was filmed last October at London’s Royal Albert Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Choir and, on March 25, will be on the silver screen all over the UK and a bunch of other countries which are not the United States.

But I suppose we should always look on the bright side of life: there’s a trailer below for the show, which is described as “like Handel only funnier,” and which features writer/star/Python Eric Idle along with fellow funnymen Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin (no Cleese, drat).

No word yet on when we Yanks can expect to be reunited with our three favorite sheep, but worst case scenario is an inevitable DVD release stateside. In the meantime, a preview:

Whenever Tom Waits takes on an acting role, he can basically pick any famous director he wants. So it’s no wonder Waits has chosen films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Terry Gilliam, and Robert Altman to show off his more than capable acting chops. This year, Waits has been getting rave reviews for his turn as Mr. Nick (aka Satan) in Terry Gilliam’s star-studded The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (Heath Ledger’s final film). In a post on the film’s official site, Gilliam reveals how easy it was to get Waits to join the cast and Waits muses on how he got into character as the devil.

Gilliam says it all started when he passed a friend’s script on to Waits, adding, “He turned down my friend, but asked ‘have you got anything going for me?’ And I said ‘well, there is this interesting part in my new film…’ and that was it. Just like that. I said, ‘I’d got a part’ and he said ‘I’m in.’ Before he’d read the script.” Just like that, then.”

On how he got into character, Waits says he didn’t try to take on 2,000 years of history. “How do you play the devil?” Waits asks. “How do you play an archetype that large, that deep in history? I finally realized that I was just going to have to play it myself; it’s my devil. It’s the way I play the devil.”