Biography

Monica Anna Maria Bellucci (Italian: [ˈmɔːnika belˈluttʃi]; born 30 September 1964) is an Italian actress and model. She began her career as a fashion model, modelling for Dolce & Gabbana and Dior, before making a transition to Italian films and later American and French films. Bellucci played a Bride of Dracula in Francis Ford Coppola's gothic horror romance film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Malèna Scordia in the Italian-language romantic drama Malèna (2000). She was in the controversial Gaspar Noé arthouse thriller film Irréversible (2002), and portrayed Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's biblical drama The Passion of the Christ (2004). In the 2003 science-fiction films The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, she played Persephone.