Monica Bellucci

From law school to the big screen

Monica Bellucci came into film almost by accident while trying to pay for law studies at the University of Perugia.

Her face was already on billboards across Milan and Paris by the late eighties. But she wanted more than posing for fashion photographers. In 1990 she made her debut on Italian television under Dino Risi in Vita coi figli.

She had barely any dramatic experience when Francis Ford Coppola cast her in a brief role in Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. It was a sign of what was to come.

She left law school for good.

The assault on the European market

France was the country that truly recognized her potential beyond the runway. In 1996 she shot L’Appartement and met Vincent Cassel there. The chemistry between them spilled off the screen and defined a chapter of European cinema that blended glamour with an unusual rawness.

That same year, she earned a César nomination for Most Promising Actress. Phone calls didn't stop, because directors saw in her a mix of the sophistication of classic screen divas and a very sharp modernity.

In 2000, she starred in Malèna by Giuseppe Tornatore. The film required her to work with almost no dialogue, relying entirely on her body language to portray the envy and desire of a Sicilian village.

Nine minutes of footage nearly destroyed her public image.

The Bet on Risk

Many assumed she would be limited to decorative roles. But in 2002, she agreed to star in Irréversible by Gaspar Noé. The rape scene in the tunnel lasted nine minutes and was filmed in a single take without cuts.

That decision drew massive backlash in certain sectors of the industry. But Bellucci defended the film at the Cannes Film Festival despite the critics' boos. She has never been afraid of visual controversy.

Hollywood eventually gave in to her presence. In 2003, she appeared in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions as Persephone. The contract included an extremely strict confidentiality clause about the digital effects of the shoot in Australia.

Mel Gibson hired her in 2004 to play Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ. She had to learn Ancient Aramaic for the role and shot most of her scenes in the bitter cold of the city of Matera.

And the gamble paid off.

Maturity and the Burton factor

In 2015, she became the oldest woman to play a Bond girl in Spectre. She was 50 years old. She always rejected the term girl and preferred to be called a Bond woman, because she considered the original label reductive.

For years she alternated independent productions in Italy with major blockbusters. In 2024 she worked under Tim Burton in the sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, playing Delores and sharing the cast with Jenna Ortega and Michael Keaton.

Her personal relationship with Burton began in 2023 after they met at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon. On set, however, they kept a strictly professional distance so as not to disrupt the production's pace.

For her role in the series about Maria Callas in 2024, she had to study the soprano's original recordings for months. Filming took place mainly in locations in Greece and Paris, using 35mm cameras.