Foto di Monica Bellucci

Biography:
Born in 1964 in the Italian village of Città di Castello, Umbria, Bellucci originally pursued a career in the legal profession. While attending the University of Perugia, she modeled on the side to earn money for school, and this led to her modeling career. Long a star in Italy, where she has drawn comparisons to Sophia Loren, Monica Bellucci turned heads worldwide as a hip-swinging war widow in the 2000 Italian hit Malena. A former model, Bellucci began her film career in 1990; she made her U.S. feature debut in Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992) and proved herself as a leading lady in L'Appartement (1996). She appeared with Morgan Freeman in Under Suspicion (2000) and with Keanu Reeves and Laurence Fishburne in 2003's The Matrix Reloaded. In 2004 she played Mary Magdalene to Jim Caviezel's Jesus of Nazareth in the film The Passion of the Christ. She has since focused on Italian films, with a few appearances in American flicks, including The Brothers Grimm (2005, as the Mirror Queen) and The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009, with Winona Ryder).