Born: Monica Anna Maria Bellucci on 30 September 1964, in Citta di Castello, Umbria, Italy.

Monica Bellucci is an Italian actress and fashion model, the daughter of Maria Gustinelli, a painter, and Luigi Bellucci, who owned a trucking company. Bellucci started modelling at 16, when she was attending to the Liceo Classico. Initially pursuing a career as a lawyer, by modelling Bellucci helped finance her tuition while at the University of Perugia, but the glamorous lifestyle tempted Monica away from her law studies.

In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centres, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. She posed for Dolce & Gabbana and French ELLE, among others. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes.

Bellucci's film career began in the early 1990s. In 1992 she made her first appearance in a major English-language film as one of Dracula's brides in Bram Stoker's Dracula. She became known and popular with English-speaking audiences following her lead role in the acclaimed Italian film Malèna, as well as through the portrayal of a rape victim in the highly controversial Irréversible, though is perhaps best known for her role as Persephone in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions followed by her portrayal of Mary Magdelene in The Passion of the Christ.

When I eat with my friends, it is a moment of real pleasure, when I really enjoy my life.

In 2003, Bellucci starred in Tears of the Sun as a doctor in Nigeria being rescued by the US and in the 2005 fantasy film The Brothers Grimm as a beautiful evil queen. Her latest films are The Stone Council, directed by the Frenchman Guillaume Nicloux (2006) and Manuale d'amore 2 (2007) where she portrays a physiotherapist in the first segment of the film who is object of the desire of her patient. September 2007 saw the release of Shoot 'Em Up, where she plays a prostitute opposite Clive Owen.

Bellucci is married to fellow actor Vincent Cassel, with whom she has appeared in several films and had a daughter, named Deva (born September 12, 2004).