Monica Bellucci Biography (2)

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Monica Bellucci first attracted international attention in the US with her sizzling performance as Malena, the beautiful young widow who turns a small Italian village upside down in the 2000 film Malena by Giuseppe Tomatore. But at that point Bellucci had already been a major star in Europe for several years, a great beauty whose depth as a performer was well known. In fact she was celebrated as a female icon years before she began performing, launching a successful career as a model while still a pre-law student at the University of Perugia. Her slinky black & white TV commercial for Dolce & Gabbana stimulated pulse rates around the world.

In 1990, director/producer Dino Risi offered Bellucci a leading role in the Italian television series Vita Coi Figh (Life With Sons), opposite Giancarlo Giannini. She made her feature film debut in Francesco Laudadio's La Rya (1991), and from then on she was rarely referred to as a model turned actress. Her performance in the 1996 French thriller The Apartment (1996) established her as a full-fledged film star and earned her a nomination for a Cesar award, the French equivalent of the Oscar.

Almost from the beginning Monica Bellucci has attracted the attention of international filmmakers. Francis Ford Coppola gave her a small role as one of the seductive Brides of Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and she appeared with Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman in Stephen Hopkins's Under Suspicion (2000) and in the French martial arts/horror sensation Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolo, produced by Luc Besson. She has made a point of ignoring traditional distinctions between the art house and commercial career tracks for performers, appearing in 2003 in both Gaspar Noes transgressive shocker Irreversible (2003) and opposite Bruce Willis in Antoine Fuqua's action adventure film Tears of the Sun.

Monica Bellucci's iconic significance increased exponentially in 2003 with her back-to-back appearances as the cyber goddess Persephone in the Wachowski Brothers's The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

She will also be seen in the upcoming feature films, She Hate Me and The Brothers Grimm.

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