Monica Bellucci

Monica Bellucci Biography

Born on September 30, 1964, in Città di Castello, Umbria, Monica Anna Maria Bellucci is a renowned Italian actress and model who made a name for herself in the fashion industry before transitioning to the big screen.

Bellucci’s modeling career began when she was just 13 years old, posing for a friend of the family in her hometown. Her striking looks and natural talent quickly caught the attention of Piero Montanucci, a hairdresser who encouraged her to pursue modeling.

As a student at Liceo classico, Monica Bellucci would go on to make her debut on the runway at age 16 during a fashion show in Florence, dressed by fashion entrepreneur Pina Alberti. Her talent and beauty soon made her a sought-after model, and she began doing three fashion shows a year.

In 1988, Bellucci graced the covers of the Spanish Vogue and French version of Elle, photographed by Oliviero Toscani, which led her to be spotted by Elite Model Management. She signed a contract with the agency in 1989 and quickly became a top model in Milan, Paris, and New York City.

Throughout her modeling career, Monica Bellucci worked with high-end fashion brands like Dolce & Gabbana, Cartier, and Dior, becoming a muse for many of them. In 1991, she became the brand ambassador for French personal care L’Oréal, and in 1997, Cartier made her their ambassador and muse.

Monica Bellucci’s acting career began in 1990, after making her debut in the TV film Vita coi figli, having been cast by Italian director Dino Risi after he noticed her photograph in a magazine. The following year, she appeared in La Riffa, her first film role, offered to her by Italian director Francesco Laudadio.

In 1992, Monica Bellucci got her big International breakthrough, playing a bride of Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula after being spotted by Roman Coppola in the Italian magazine Zoom. After Coppola’s father, Francis Ford, offered her a role, Bellucci flew to Los Angeles to meet him. Francis wanted her to stay in LA, but she chose to pursue an acting career in Italy and returned there to take acting classes.

In 1997, Monica Bellucci was nominated for a César Award for Most Promising Actress for her role in The Apartment, which launched her towards stardom in France. The film was highly praised and later won a British Academy Film Award.

In 2000, she caught the attention of American audiences with her first English-language lead role in Under Suspicion, starring opposite Morgan Freeman and Gene Hackman. She also starred in Tornatore’s Malèna, which earned her international success . She then starred in Brotherhood of the Wolf, which was a box-office success and earned her a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the Saturn Awards in Los Angeles.

In 2002, Monica Bellucci starred alongside Cassel in thriller Irréversible by Gaspar Noé. In the film, she played Alex and was brutally raped for nine minutes in an underpass, a scene that she had to shoot four times. Despite causing outrage and visceral reactions from the audience, the film was highly praised by some critics.

The following year, she received the Nastro d’Argento for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the Italian romantic drama Remember Me, My Love. Monica Bellucci also appeared in Tears of the Sun opposite Bruce Willis, and in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions as Persephone.

In 2004, she played Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s controversial film, The Passion of the Christ. Despite objections from some Catholics, Bellucci’s performance was highly praised, with some critics singling her out as the standout from the cast.

In Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm (2005), she played the 500-year-old Mirror Queen alongside Matt Damon and Heath Ledger. She also voiced a character in the French version of the animated film Robots.

Bellucci had a leading role in the French romantic comedy How Much Do You Love Me? and was praised for her performance as the beautiful prostitute, Daniela. In 2006, she appeared in the thriller The Stone Council, replacing Bond girl Sophie Marceau in the lead role.

Monica Bellucci also starred in Kim Chapiron’s Sheitan as a vampire and appeared in Paolo Virzì’s Napoleon and Me alongside Daniel Auteuil. In Shoot ‘Em Up (2007), Bellucci played another prostitute named Donna Quintano, who helps protect a baby from a dangerous group of men. She also starred in the crime film The Second Wind, playing a tenacious character enamored with a gangster who escaped prison.

In 2008, she starred in Marco Tullio Giordana’s biographical film Wild Blood (Sanguepazzo). She played Alba in the Italian film The Man Who Loves, where she was enamoured of Pierfrancesco Favino’s character, Roberto, through a cinematic flashback.

On 5 March 2009, Monica Bellucci received the World Actress Award at the Women’s World Award in Vienna. That same year, Bellucci co-starred with Marceau in the thriller Don’t Look Back, a sequel to In My Skin, both directed by Marina de Van.

Monica Bellucci starred in Rebecca Miller’s rom-com The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, featuring Robin Wright and Winona Ryder, and appeared in a cameo role in Tornatore’s Baarìa, a family saga covering several generations and shot in Bagheria, Sicily.

In 2010, Belluci portrayed Laura Leviani in Larysa Kondracki’s biographical drama thriller The Whistleblower, which shone light on a human trafficking network discovered in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1999.

Bellucci shot three films in seven months including, Giovanni Veronesi’s The Ages of Love, Philippe Garrel’s A Burning Hot Summer, and Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhino Season, where she learned to speak Persian (Farsi), a Western Iranian language.

Monica Bellucci starred as Milly Catena, host of the Countryside Wonders televised contest in Alice Rohrwacher’s family drama film The Wonders in 2014, which won the Grand Prix Award at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival.

In Guy Édoin’s Canadian drama film Ville-Marie in 2015, Bellucci played the leading role of Sophie Bernard, a European actress visiting Montreal for a film shoot and trying to reconcile with her son. She received the Best Actress Award from the Dublin Film Critics’ Circle for her performance.

In the same year, Monica Bellucci was cast as Bond girl Lucia Sciarra in Spectre. She was 50 at the time of filming and stirred up some controversy as she became the oldest Bond girl, and certainly one of the most beautiful, in the entire series.

Bellucci received the European Silver Ribbon Award in 2017 for her role in On the Milky Road, a romance set during the Balkan war. In 2019, she played the role of Elena in Claude Lelouch’s The Best Years of a Life.

In 2021, she received a David Special Award at the 66th David di Donatello ceremony. She stated that her days of acting in transgressive movies are behind her, recalling her role in Irréversible, and that now, as a mother, she has a “visceral” need to act regularly in films from her native country of Italy.

In her personal life, Bellucci was married to Italian photographer Claudio Carlos Basso for six months at the age of 20. And from 1989 to 1995, she had a relationship with Italian actor Nicola Farron.

Bellucci later met French actor Vincent Cassel on the set of their film The Apartment in 1996, married him in 1999 and had two daughters. The couple separated in 2013 and later divorced.

She was in a relationship with French sculptor Nicolas Lefebvre in 2017 and they made it official in 2019 before ending their relationship later that year. In February 2023, it was announced that Monica Bellucci is in a relationship with American director Tim Burton.

She is fluent in Italian, French, and English languages, and has proficiency in Portuguese and Spanish. Find out more at Monica Belluci’s official website.

A selection of Monica Bellucci Pics