A Bombshell explodes.

31.01.12

1Life & Style

Monica Bellucci talks about femininity, family and film.

Probably not since Sophia Loren, has an Italian actress  had  such a powerful  physical impact on international audiences as Monica Bellucci. Recently, walking down Sloane Street, two grown men sprinted after her and knelt before her on the pavement.  If men find  Bellucci’s presence daunting, she always handles the fuss with ease. She has the classic features of Ava Gardner and a womanly figure fashioned in the mould of the great Italian film stars that precede her, but equally impressive is Monica’s equilibrium as a woman, which transpires at first impact.  She is comfortable in her own skin.  This, she will tell you is not to do with her success as a model and actress, but with the stable childhood she received in Citta` di Castello, a small town on the cusp of Umbria and Tuscany,  renowned for its proximity to Piero della Francesca’s masterpiece, ‘La Madonna del Parto’, a  rare representation of the pregnant Virgin believed to bestow fertility.

“Parents make the first investment in a child’s life", she says unwaveringly on the phone from Istanbul where she is filming Rhinos Season with exiled Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi. Her husband French actor Vincent Cassel and their two young daughters are with her for a few days. “When the response you get at home is one of love and trust you become strong and when the world rejects you (because sooner or later it does) you’re able to handle it. You’re more self-assured thanks to the stability you received from your parents. It’s a natural instinctive love and if it’s ever betrayed, inevitably you become suspicious of the world around you.”

An only child, Monica left her quiet hometown at eighteen and headed for Milan, rapidly becoming one of the world’s most sought after models and firmly establishing herself as the ideal woman in the collective male psyche.  Inspired by the golden age of Italian cinema, Monica always harbored the desire to become an actress. “ I was fascinated by the Italian actresses of that era, their femininity and presence captured my imagination.”   Director Dino Risi spotted a picture of her in a magazine and cast her in a small role in a TV film with Giancarlo Giannini. Monica packed her bags and moved to Paris choosing to study acting in a foreign language rather than remain in Italy where all the doors were open for her.  Her brief appearance as a Vampire in Coppola’s Dracula was memorable. She worked hard, evolving from modeling to acting, never making obvious choices, inhabiting daring roles and working with some of the world’s most interesting directors.  “There needs to be some integrity. If you do something purely for fame or money you’re selling your soul, and nobody is going to give it back to you.”   

Bellucci with husband, Vincent Cassel in 'L'Appartement, 1996.

In 1996 she was cast in the Bafta nominated ‘L’Appartement’, opposite her future husband Vincent Cassel. “We’ve been together for seventeen years”, she ponders. Was it love at first sight? “It was attraction at first sight and initially I was quite suspicious of it”, she muses. “It’s important to evolve together and so far we have.  I like the man Vincent has become. Once the game of seduction and the initial passion subside, you shed your fears, you can be fragile, you truly become who you are and  able to really give yourself to the other. But mystery is also important, one must not overburden a partner”  

More films in Italian, French and English followed, including Malena, in 2000 by Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) a leading role she needed in her mother tongue to cement her as an  actress in her own culture. She was Mary Magdalene in Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, appeared in two Matrix sequels and opposite her husband in, ‘Irreversible’, shocking for its brutal rape scene. Today Monica is one of the few actresses in her forties going from strength to strength.  

 Bellucci balances family and career without losing  an ounce of femminity. In the tradition of the iconicItalianfilm stars, Monica is always flawless when she leaves the house.  “Even at fourteen in Citta` di Castello, I would leave home nicely dressed, always with make-up , just to  go down the road to buy bread”, she quips.  “But it was never to impress others. It’s important to honour our own femminity.  Women often seem to want to change themselves to conform to some image they have, perhaps what they think is the masculine ideal, when the most important thing for men really is to feel relaxed in the presence of a woman.  Every woman should respect her own nature.  Love ‘, she says,  ‘must always begin with the self.  I don’t have much time now, but I’ll always take those forty-five minutes each day and disappear into the bathroom to relax. If you don’t give yourself some love and attention how can you recharge your batteries and give love to others? Those forty minutes of privacy last me for the whole day.”

Monica’s public appearances these days are mostly at film festivals or on red carpets to promote her films. She prefers to spend time with family and friends. She’s a woman’s woman and those who know her well will unanimously agree that her best quality is her kindness.  She has always heeded her instinct in all of life’s matters – career or non. “I never wanted to sacrifice my femminity for credibility as an actress. For me the two can go together,”  The unwavering love and support she received growing up is what she most wants to pass on to her children and what she gives to her friends. Monica takes nothing for granted, neither her uncontested beauty, nor her  amazing journey from  a quiet town in Umbria to the City of Light.