INTERVIEWS•5 photos

Monica Bellucci finding herself in her 50s

At 52, Bellucci has a compelling voice, is even more beautiful in the flesh than on film, and appears, rather stylishly, to be wearing an off-the-shoulder evening top at 10.30 in the morning. The fake eyelashes, it transpires, are not for my benefit. She was shooting a film yesterday to promote a song she’s made with a leading French singer. She explains she gets approached for work all the time, especially by photographers, and normally says no. But when Francesco Carrozzini called her for this Telegraph shoot it was different. ‘I knew his mother,’ Bellucci says, referring to the Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, who died last year. They met in Bellucci’s previous life as a model. ‘She was one of the greatest women I ever met,’ Bellucci continues. ‘Such a strong woman. I had so much respect for her, the way she managed her professional life, her personal life. So when he called me, I said yes. It was a way to be in touch with her. That day we did the shoot in Chinatown in New York, I thought about her a lot.’ Success as a model came before success as an actress, and Bellucci still feels very much at home being photographed. The struggle, she admits, was being taken seriously in films at the start of her career, when in 1990 she was cast in the Italian-language film Vita coi figli (Life with the Kids) by the Italian director Dino Risi after he saw her picture in a magazine. ‘The most difficult period was when I transferred from modelling to acting,’ she has said. Perhaps this is why she has pursued ‘difficult’ roles such as that of a rape victim in the controversial thriller Irreversible, Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and the Mirror Queen in Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm. ‘When you are beautiful and you do something that is very strong, people say you are courageous, but they don’t say you are good,’ she says. ‘Now I am older, they say, “You are good.”’ Bellucci is upbeat about ageing. But then she hasn’t really aged. She hasn’t lost her looks (she credits acupuncture and facial massages) or her figure – ‘I do Pilates and swim, but I don’t wake up at six and go to the gym. Forget it!’ – and has a ready list of inspirational maxims: ‘It is not a matter of age, it is a matter of energy,’ ‘The body gets older but the soul younger,’ ‘You can be old at just 20,’ and so forth.
At 52, Bellucci has a compelling voice, is even more beautiful in the flesh than on film, and appears, rather stylishly, to be wearing an off-the-shoulder evening top at 10.30 in the morning. The fake eyelashes, it transpires, are not for my benefit. She was shooting a film yesterday to promote a song she’s made with a leading French singer. She explains she gets approached for work all the time, especially by photographers, and normally says no. But when Francesco Carrozzini called her for this Telegraph shoot it was different. ‘I knew his mother,’ Bellucci says, referring to the Italian Vogue editor Franca Sozzani, who died last year. They met in Bellucci’s previous life as a model. ‘She was one of the greatest women I ever met,’ Bellucci continues. ‘Such a strong woman. I had so much respect for her, the way she managed her professional life, her personal life. So when he called me, I said yes. It was a way to be in touch with her. That day we did the shoot in Chinatown in New York, I thought about her a lot.’ Success as a model came before success as an actress, and Bellucci still feels very much at home being photographed. The struggle, she admits, was being taken seriously in films at the start of her career, when in 1990 she was cast in the Italian-language film Vita coi figli (Life with the Kids) by the Italian director Dino Risi after he saw her picture in a magazine. ‘The most difficult period was when I transferred from modelling to acting,’ she has said. Perhaps this is why she has pursued ‘difficult’ roles such as that of a rape victim in the controversial thriller Irreversible, Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, and the Mirror Queen in Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm. ‘When you are beautiful and you do something that is very strong, people say you are courageous, but they don’t say you are good,’ she says. ‘Now I am older, they say, “You are good.”’ Bellucci is upbeat about ageing. But then she hasn’t really aged. She hasn’t lost her looks (she credits acupuncture and facial massages) or her figure – ‘I do Pilates and swim, but I don’t wake up at six and go to the gym. Forget it!’ – and has a ready list of inspirational maxims: ‘It is not a matter of age, it is a matter of energy,’ ‘The body gets older but the soul younger,’ ‘You can be old at just 20,’ and so forth.

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Comments (1)

AMIR N2018-07-11

Hello lady monica bellucci I saw your Irreversible film, and I was saddened because you in film were hurt I love you so much and I cannot endurance the movies you will hurting Also, I've seen you in Malena's film, and I was saddened because you in film were hurt You are my very beautiful and favorite actor, please, in videos that you are harassed Thanks & Regards Amir N IRAN

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