Monica Bellucci, a svelte Italian actress and former model is well known for her work ion cinema comprising of different languages. Be it Italian, French or the very own, Hollywood, Bellucci has tried her hands in every film medium. Her film career began in 1990s with her first U.S. feature, Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992) where she played a topless vampire. Bellucci made her French-language debut in 1996's award-winning romance L'Appartement (The Apartment).Her crowning moment came when she earned worldwide acclaim for her portrayal as the title character in the 2000 U.S. movie, Malena. Most recently, she had been in the news for playing the controversial character of Mary Magdalene in the equally controversial Mel Gibson starrer, The Passion Of The Christ (2004).
She was born as Monica Anna Maria Bellucci on September 30, 1964 in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy, to Luigi Bellucci, who owned a trucking company, and Maria Gustinelli, a painter.Bellucci did her schooling from Liceo Classico. While she was still in school, at the age of 16, she started modeling. Initially, Monica’s career goal was to become a lawyer and she even enrolled herself for that in University of Perugia. Her entry into modeling field was with the motive of getting some extra income to pay off her tuition fees at college. But the lure of glamour and famed lifestyle soon made her drop out from college and join the fashion world band wagon in full force.
Career Modeling
In 1988, Bellucci shifted base to Milan, considered to be the shrine of fashion houses where upon she was promptly signed by Elite Model Management. Soon, she was established as a successful model and her kitty overflowed with names like Dolce & Gabbana and French ELLE. Her prominence over the Paris as well as New York fashion circuit reflected in her assignments which included her on the cover and in an article on the five senses in The February 2001 Esquire Magazine's feature on Desire. In 2003, she was featured in Maxim. In 2004, she got the topmost ranking in AskMen's 100 Most Beautiful Women in the World annual list. Bellucci's modeling career is managed by Elite in NYC. An Italian sex symbol, She is currently a face of a range of Dior Cosmetics.
Career in Movies
During 1990, she began her training as an actress and went on to star in few Italian productions before arriving on the U.S. movie scene in 1992 with Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Bellucci returned to her Italian movie circuit and starred in n the heist film I Mitici (The Heroes) (1994) and the children's movie Palla di Neve (Snowball) (1995). But she wanted international recognition which led her to turn her wheels towards the French cinema where she debuted with an award winning romance L'Appartement (The Apartment) opposite French actor Vincent Cassel. Their on screen chemistry spilled off screen too and the couple son reunited in the gender-bending romance Come Mi Vuoi (As You Want Me) (1996) and murderous bank robbers in Jan Kounen's infamous thriller Dobermann (1997).
2000 saw her coming back to the Hollywood genre of movies in Under Suspicion, where she played Gene Hackman's estranged trophy wife. The year also brought her career’s probably best work with Malena. The film featured Bellucci as a quiet young bride who is left alone in a small Sicilian town when her husband goes off to fight in World War II. Stunningly attractive, she struggles to keep her dignity as she is spurned by the female villagers and preyed upon by the men. She followed this up by Christopher Gans' genre hybrid Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2002) which also earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the U.S. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films.
Monica again came into the limelight when she got selected for the two sequels of Matrix trilogy, The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Soon after, Bruce Willis personally chose Bellucci to play a humanitarian doctor whom he must save from war-torn Nigeria in Tears of the Sun, director Antoine Fuqua's follow-up to his hit Training Day (2001).
In 2004, she essayed the role of Mary Magdalene in the much controversial The Passion of the Christ (2004), Mel Gibson's self-produced blockbuster retelling of the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ. This also brought her two more roles in Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm and Spike Lee’s She Hate Me.
Her latest venture was Le Deuxième soufflé (2007), an Alain Corneau thriller with Daniel Auteuil, Michel Blanc and former football player Eric Cantona. Bellucci also voiced as Kaileena in the video game Prince of Persia: Warrior Within.
Monica is currently married to her French movie co star, Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films and had a daughter, named Deva (born September 12, 2004). In 2004, while pregnant with her daughter, Bellucci posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair Magazine in protest against Italian laws that allow only married couples to use in-vitro fertilization and that prevent the use of donor sperm.
Given her righteous attitude, this actress is just raring to go places.
