Monica Bellucci Biography

Monica Bellucci was born on September 30, 1964 in Città di Castello, in Umbria (region in central Italy). At 18, she enrolled at the University of Perugia in order to study law. To pay for her education, Monica Bellucci began modelling. Two years later, she abandoned her studies to go to Milan, where she signed with the agency Elite Model Management. Monica Bellucci has appeared in international advertising campaigns for designers such as Dolce and Gabbana, Cartier and more recently Dior. Alongside her career, she began taking courses in theater and appeared in a TV movie by Dino Risi, Vita coi figli (1990), before getting her first important role in La Riffa (1991) by Francesco Laudadio. Shortly after, she was spotted by Francis Ford Coppola who offered her a small role in his Dracula (1992). She acts in a few films in Italy, before arriving in France, where she gets a role in with L'Appartement (1996) by Gilles Mimouni for which she gets a César in the category Most Promising Actress. It is on the filming of this romance where she meets Vincent Cassel, her future husband with whom she has a girl named Deva since September 12, 2004. Both then meet again on the set of Dobermann (1997) by Jan Kounen and Irreversible (2002) by Gaspar Noe, where she plays a raped woman, and in the espionage thriller Secret Agents (2004) by Frederic Schoendoerffer . The beautiful Italian also shows her charms in a big French productions such as Le Pacte des loups (2001) and Asterix and Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002), where she plays the great Pharaoh Cleopatra. Meanwhile, she began an international career, taking up the role originally held by Romy Schneider in the american remake Under Suspicion (2000) and ending up with Bruce Willis in The Tears of the Sun (2003), war movie directed by Antoine Fuqua. Along Lambert Wilson, she also has a small role in the last two chapters of the Matrix saga: Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. In The Passion of Christ (2004) directed by Mel Gibson she has a role of Mary Magdalene, then plays a witch in The Brothers Grimm (2005) from the director Terry Gilliam. Monica is married to Vincent Cassel (french actor) since 1999 and is mother of a small Deva since 12/09/2004.