Monica Bellucci

The stunningly gorgeous raven-haired Monica Bellucci is an Italian sex symbol, actress, and fashion model. 

Born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy, on September 30, 1964, the Italian beauty decided to pursue a career in modeling rather than a career in law after working part time as a model to help pay for her tuition in law studies tempted her away. In addition to Italian, Bellucci is also fluent in both English and French, and also speaks Aramaic—an ability that has come in handy throughout her acting career, which launched in 1990, when she was twenty-six. That decade saw her work in mostly dramatic roles in various Italian as well as some French films, with a notable exception in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 English-language film Dracula, in which she played Dracula’s bride. The film also featured Gary Oldman as Dracula, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins, and Keanu Reeves.  

However, Bellucci later quickly rose to fame in the English-speaking world starting with her role in the Italian hit Malèna in 2000, and as a rape victim in Irréversible two years later. She rose even higher when she snagged the role of Persephone in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, which both released in 2003, alongside Keanu Reeves, Carrie Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Jada Pinkett Smith. 

She completely switched gears in 2004 with her critically acclaimed role as Mary Magdelene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, featuring James Caviezel as Jesus. A year later, Bellucci co-starred alongside the formidable tag-team of Heath Ledger and Matt Damon as the beautiful but evil Mirror Queen in The Brothers Grimm. Bellucci has continued and kept up her work in foreign language films, particular in Italian and French. 

Before breaking into the acting world, Bellucci was a famous professional model, having signed a contract with the noted Elite Model Management, and by the late 1980s, she became a prominent model across Milan, Paris, and New York City.  Bellucci has been featured in such prestigious magazines as French ELLE, and has also posed nude for Maxim, GQ, Vanity Fair, and InStyle. She also posed nude for the Italian Vanity Fair when she was pregnant with her daughter (who was born on September 12, 2004), as a protest against laws in Italy that prevent woman from using sperm donors as well as unmarried couples from using in-vitro fertilization. 

Bellucci will be appearing in a number of new films in 2007, including Shoot ’Em Up,  in which she stars alongside Clive Owen and Paul Giamatti as a prostitute who just gave birth.

YUDDY