Monica Bellucci said Friday she had
seen "the man before the artist" in her new partner, American
director Tim Burton.
"What I can say is that I'm happy to have met a man who has a
wonderful soul and also a director I think a great deal of," the
59-year-old Bond girl and Matrix sequels actress said in a Roman
hotel about her relationship with the 65-year-old Edward
Scissorhands and Sleepy Hollow auteur, whom she met while
working on his latest film, Beetlejuice 2.
The pair were snapped together on the red carpet at the Rome
film fest ahead of the premiere of the Manetti Bros third and
final work in their trilogy on supervillain Diabolik, 'Diabolik,
chi se' (Diabolik, Wh Are You), ion which she plays Altea, the
partner of Ginko.
Bellucci, who has a daughter with former partner Vincent Cassel
(1999-20013), was speaking ahead of the presentation in Rome of
the documentary of her 2019-2023 stage tour, Maria Callas:
Letters and Memoirs.
A former top model Bellucci made her film debut in Francesco
Laudadio's Italian comedy La Riffa (1991) and went on to play a
bride of Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's gothic horror romance
film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
Her breakthrough role was in The Apartment (1996), for which she
received a César Award nomination for Most Promising Actress.
She captured American audiences' attention in Stephen Hopkins'
Under Suspicion (2000), and gained greater international
recognition by portraying Malèna Scordia in Giuseppe Tornatore's
Italian romantic drama Malèna (2000). Bellucci starred in
Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001) with Cassel and in a comedic role
in Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra (2002) and in Gaspar
Noé's controversial arthouse thriller Irréversible (2002).
Bellucci portrayed Persephone in the 2003 science-fiction films
The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.
She played Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's biblical drama The
Passion of the Christ (2004).
She starred in The Brothers Grimm (2005), How Much Do You Love
Me? (2005), Shoot 'Em Up (2007), The Whistleblower (2010), The
Ages of Love (2011), The Wonders (2014), and Ville-Marie (2015).
At the age of 50, by appearing in the 2015 James Bond film
Spectre, Bellucci became the oldest Bond girl in the history of
the franchise.
Continuing her international multilingual acting career, she has
since acted in films such as On the Milky Road (2016), The Best
Years of a Life (2019), The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020), and
Memory (2022).
Her television appearances include the series Mozart in the
Jungle and the recent hit, Dix pour cent (Call My Agent).
Bellucci made her stage debut in 2019, initiating a long series
of interpretations of the Letters and Memoirs of Maria Callas.
Among her accolades are two Globo d'oro Awards, two Nastro
d'Argento Awards, a Donostia Award, and a David Special Award.
Bellucci received the knight insignias of the Order of Arts and
Letters in 2006 and the Legion of Honour in 2016.
She is a permanent member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences.
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