Monica Bellucci

Everything indicates that it could last in the history of cinema as María Magdalena in The Passion of the Christ , something more than the most anticipated film of the year, which is sweeping the box office. But getting there has not been easy. Behind this success lies an elaborate career that includes some forty films, almost all of them in selected supporting roles that have made noise. It is clear that she is not a flash in the pan like her compatriots Maria Grazia Cucinotta , Valeria Marini or Francesca Neri , but she is already compared to the divas and “maggioratas”, read Sofia Loren, Alida Valli , Anna Magnani or Claudia Cardinale .

The only daughter of a modest businessman and a painter, Monica Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964, in the Italian town of Citta di Castello (Perugia). “It’s a place where everyone knows each other, so a little walk down the street is an act of personal self-affirmation, everyone knows everything about you,” explains the interpreter. During her childhood, which passed without incident, she was fond of good movies, and she has special memories of Two Women , by Vittorio de Sica.. In order to pay for her law studies at the University of Peruggia, she began to work as a model, with such a good reception that she decided to leave the university in 1988, to move to Milan, the European capital of fashion. There she obtained a contract with one of the most reputable modeling agencies, which opened the doors of the most sought-after designers. 

The catwalk fell short very soon. “She needed to pursue a more creative profession than just displaying beauty,” recalls Monica, although this has become a cliché for any model. The truth is that more because of her pretty face than anything else, she caught the attention of two great filmmakers. First, the Italian maestro Dino Risi led to his debut with a small role in his television series Vita coi figli . Soon after, Francis Ford Coppola made her the bride of the king of vampires, a wordless anecdotal role for his Dracula .. “Okay, it’s clear that neither of them came to me precisely because I was the best actress in the world, but because they had seen me in photos. But if you’re an idiot, you can’t stand that initial impression. If you don’t show your talent afterwards, you don’t pass the selection”, clarifies the star. 

But Monica Bellucci was here to stay. Installed in Paris, she established herself in French cinema with her supporting role in Flash Back (The Apartment) . This Hitchcockian intrigue film earned her a Cesar for Best New Actress, the French equivalent of the Oscars. She also fell in love with one of her co-stars, French actor Vincent Cassel , whom she married in 1998.

“It has been said that we had separated, but the truth is that we are very close and although we are always traveling we meet as soon as we can,” the actress recently declared. In fact, they don’t go far from each other, not even to work, since they have shot eight films together so far. The most successful was The Pact of the Wolves , an action film in which the knight Grégoire de Fronsac chased a monstrous creature that sowed terror in 18th-century France. Dobermann , an adaptation of a comic about a hired killer, and Irreversible also had an impact ., pedantic and brutal film narrated in reverse that caused just outrage at the Cannes festival for its gratuitous violence. They are currently shooting their ninth collaboration, Secret Agents , another intrigue film.

Two heavyweights, Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman , accompanied Monica Bellucci in her North American film debut, the correct thriller Under Suspicion , which was not very successful. And although no one is a prophet in her land, it was in Italy where she was offered her first leading role.

During her time as a model, she had shot an advertisement for watches with Giuseppe Tornatore , the manager of Cinema Paradiso , who remembered her when he was preparing another nostalgic story, Malena , which portrayed the atmosphere of a small Sicilian village during World War II. There, a teenager discovered love when he was fascinated by a woman whose husband had had to go to the front. Afterwards, she again served as a luxury guest, in Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra , as the charismatic queen of Egypt, and in Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions , as Persephone, an enigmatic woman who kissed her husband to make her husband jealous. Keanu Reeves to make her husband jealous., again, since he had already done it in Dracula . The doctor she played in Tears of the Sun has been kidnapped in Nigeria, but there’s no need to worry if Bruce Willis comes to the rescue.

A certain typecasting as a frivolous woman made her the ideal actress to play the redeemed Magdalena in The Passion of the Christ . It was she who found out that Mel Gibson was mainly recruiting Italian actors for his shoot, which was to be in the south of the country. Despite the fact that she declared herself an agnostic, she insisted on meeting Gibson, who after chatting with her in Rome offered her the aforementioned role.

“Maria Magdalena is human, very simple, a sinner who represents me, or any other person,” she explained about her character, in a tape that she considers “a work of art, like a painting.” He finds no words to praise Gibson, whom he considers “intelligent and generous.”

Judging by the reception of the tape, it can already be guessed that it will mean a giant step forward for Monica Bellucci’s career. At the moment, she prepares several projects. The most attention-grabbing is the Brothers Grimm biography being shot by Terry Gilliam , with Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the celebrated short story writers.