'I told Sam Mendes he'd be a hero with women for casting me': Monica Belluci on seducing Bond at...50
It’s the movie event of the year... and we’ve got the only interviews with the femmes fatales of Spectre. First Monica Bellucci tells Event: I’d prefer to be called a Bond woman or perhaps a Bond lady. Then Léa Seydoux says: And I didn’t think I was beautiful enough. To which we say: You’re wrong, plain wrong!
'Compared to the Bond girls who have gone before me, I am so much more mature. I’d prefer to be called a Bond woman or perhaps a Bond lady,’ said Monica Bellucci who plays Lucia Sciarra in Spectre
When Monica Bellucci was unveiled as one of James Bond’s new love interests, she says it wasn’t her impressive CV that got all the attention.
Nor was it her obvious physical charms: the raven-black hair, huge brown eyes, bee-stung lips, voluptuous figure... it was her age.
‘My first thought was, “How can I be a Bond girl at 50?”’ says the Italian actress, talking about the role for the first time.
‘After my audition [director] Sam Mendes told me that, for the first time in history, he wanted a woman of a similar age to the actor playing Bond.
'I told Sam he would be a hero among women for casting me in Spectre.
'Compared to the Bond girls who have gone before me, I am so much more mature.
'I’d prefer to be called a Bond woman or perhaps a Bond lady.’
In taking on the role of Lucia Sciarra, Bellucci becomes the fifth Italian to play a Bond woman.
Back home she is known simply as La Bellucci, and is regarded as one of the classic muses of Italian cinema alongside Sophia Loren.
She is held up as the epitome of the sexy older woman, a role she is happy to play along with.
‘Many 50-year-old women feel invisible to men, but it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s worth remembering that what you project outside comes from inside,' said Monica
She first launched herself as a model aged 13 and finally broke into films in the early Nineties with a small role in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Never shy of taking on controversial roles, she played Mary Magdelene in Mel Gibson’s The Passion Of The Christ and starred in Gaspar Noe’s scandalous Irréversible.
But, until Bond came calling, she was best known for her steamy scenes with Keanu Reeves in the second and third Matrix movies.
Married for 14 years to actor Vincent Cassel, the couple split ‘by mutual agreement’ in August 2013.
Though reported to be dating property magnate Telman Ismailov, she claims to be single at present.
‘Many 50-year-old women feel invisible to men,’ she says, ‘but it doesn’t have to be that way.
'It’s worth remembering that what you project outside comes from inside.
'When I go to Brazil, I see women who are not skinny at all but they dance in the street with such femininity and sensuality, and their bodies begin to look so beautiful.
‘In Europe, women are not so open to their being. We are much more closed, even scared of opening up like that.
'That sensuality, that sense of freedom you see with Brazilian women, it doesn’t come from their bodies being perfect. It comes from a freedom. It comes from inside. It’s about how you compose yourself. It’s not about how you are but how you feel.
'As Oscar Wilde said, beauty is a form of genius but beauty can become boring in two seconds if you don’t have anything else to sustain the curiosity.’
‘I started to wonder whether I had it in me to be a Bond girl. I wondered whether I was beautiful enough. So there was some anxiety about it,' said Léa Seydoux who plays Madeleine Swann in Spectre
Perhaps not surprisingly, she is all in favour of older women pairing off with younger men.
‘What is the problem with a man of 30 being with a woman of 50? It is a matter of energy and the soul, not a matter of age of the body.
'True sexiness is in the mind, the imagination, not in the age of the body.
'It doesn’t surprise me that men in their 20s and 30s are often looking for a much older woman.
'It is no surprise to me that men still find women like Isabelle Huppert, Catherine Deneuve and Charlotte Rampling very attractive.
'Men look at Judi Dench and they see so much strength, so much power that comes from inside. And that’s attractive.
'I look at those women and hope that I can have that interior richness as I get older, the kind you cannot see through the eyes.’
Fiery and gregarious, La Bellucci offers a sharp contrast to Léa Seydoux, her Spectre co-star.
As Madeleine Swann, Seydoux becomes the tenth French actress to play a Bond girl. Possessing all the necessary sultry pout, chic petiteness and Gallic enigma, the 29-year-old Parisian would appear to be a worthy successor to the likes of Claudine Auger (Thunderball), Eva Green (Casino Royale) and Bérénice Marlohe (Skyfall), although she reveals she had a crisis of confidence as soon as she landed the role.
‘I started to wonder whether I had it in me to be a Bond girl. I wondered whether I was beautiful enough.
'So there was some anxiety about it. I got the part in April 2014 and filming didn’t start until December, and so maybe I had too much time to think about it.’
Unlike Bellucci, Seydoux has no problem with the Bond girl tag, though her Bond girl dream was almost shattered as soon as it began.
Monica has fond recollections of growing up with the Sean Connery movies while Lea's strongest identification is with the Daniel Craig stretch of the franchise
‘The first audition took place at a hotel in Paris. I joined the three other contenders in line. We were there to read lines from Casino Royale and Quantum Of Solace.
'I arrived very early and I was nervous so I drank a little beer to relax myself.
'When it was time for my audition, my face was bright red and I forgot my lines. It wasn’t a success. In fact it was a failure.
'That made me very sad but I asked if I could audition a second time.
'After that, they asked if I could meet Sam Mendes at his office in London. I think he really liked me.
'He said he’d think about it. I waited for a few months. Then, in April 2014, I had lunch with Sam in London. He told me I was part of the film.’
Until now, Seydoux has been virtually unknown in the UK, but she’s long been a household name in France.
She was born into a powerful French family: her grandfather is the chairman of Pathé films, her mother, Valérie Schlumberger, is a former actress and her father, Henri Seydoux, founded a wireless technology business.
After a difficult childhood, during which she suffered from panic attacks and paralysing phobias, Seydoux made her film debut in 2006.
She has since divided her time between French arthouse and major Hollywood movies like Inglourious Basterds, Robin Hood and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
In 2013 she was awarded the Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her role in Blue Is The Warmest Colour as a blue-haired painter who seduces an introverted teenage girl.
Off-screen, she is fiercely protective of her relationship history.
Though rumoured to be hooked up with Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal, she will only concede that she’s in a steady relationship with a man who is not an actor.
The 21-year age difference between Bellucci and Seydoux becomes most apparent when they are quizzed about their earliest Bond memories.
Bellucci has fond recollections of growing up with the Sean Connery movies and her favourite Bond girl moments are from the Sixties.
‘When I think about the Bond girls from the past,’ she says, ‘I think of images frozen in time: Ursula Andress emerging from the water or Shirley Eaton painted in gold.’
Seydoux has vague memories of watching Pierce Brosnan as Bond when growing up, but her strongest identification is with the Daniel Craig stretch of the franchise.
‘With the arrival of Daniel, a new chapter seemed to open up for the Bond movies,’ she says.
‘The movies are better and much more exciting than they used to be.
‘As for the Bond girls, I especially identified with Eva Green as Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.
‘With the arrival of Daniel, a new chapter seemed to open up for the Bond movies. The movies are better and much more exciting than they used to be,' said Lea
'It impressed me that a French actress was playing a Bond girl. I was taken with the way she could be intense and mysterious, strong and vulnerable, girlish and womanly. I love it when an actress can play with contradictions.
'But there’s no way I could have imagined myself playing a Bond girl nearly ten years later. For me, that dream was too big.’
Secrecy is always the hallmark of a Bond movie, with cast and crew under strict instructions to reveal as little as possible about plot and characters, even to their nearest and dearest.
What is known is that the 24th Bond movie, the second to be directed by Sam Mendes, centres around a cryptic message from 007’s past sending him on a trail to uncover the sinister terrorist organisation known as Spectre (Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism & Extortion). Speculation is rife that Spectre is the first in a two-part story.
This latest movie sees the return of Ben Whishaw as Q, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny and Ralph Fiennes as M. Newcomers include Christoph Waltz, who is strongly rumoured to be cast as Spectre’s cat-loving leader, Blofeld, but Waltz has refused to comment.
The security that surrounds any Bond movie extends to the actors keeping mum until their casting is officially announced. When it came to keeping the news under wraps, Bellucci fared rather better than her French co-star.
‘If keeping a secret is the key to being a good spy then I think I’d make an excellent secret agent,’ she says.
‘When Sam told me I had the role of Lucia, I was also told that I had to keep it a secret for a few months.
'I didn’t tell a soul. That wasn’t a sacrifice for me. I respect a secret. Keeping a secret, for me, is a sign of maturity.’
Bellucci is rather more tight-lipped when asked to describe her Bond character, especially when asked about the rumours that Lucia Sciarra is bisexual.
‘Is that the rumour?’ she teases. ‘I don’t know if I can answer that. Let the fantasies swirl around. People will find out the truth when they see the film.
‘All I can say about Lucia is that she brings to life the idea that femininity can be a thing of strength. In life and in movies, femininity is often depicted as a weakness. But not in Spectre.’
Seydoux, in contrast, couldn’t resist telling friends and family that she’d landed the role, and is a little more forthcoming when asked to describe her character, Madeleine Swann.
‘She’s very chic, far more chic than I am in real life. She has the power to change Bond’s life.
'Her name is, of course, a nod to Marcel Proust. In Proust’s Swann’s Way, the opening book of Remembrance Of Things Past, the madeleine sponge cake has the potential to evoke powerful memories. The name has been chosen deliberately for this film.
'Madeleine Swann is a catalyst for change. She helps Bond open the mystery so it is revealed.’
As for 007 himself, Daniel Craig joked back in 2012 that he’s been trying to escape Bond since he first signed the contract, but ‘they won’t let me leave’.
Spectre will be his fourth Bond outing and it’s widely reported that the next one will be his last.
There’s already rife speculation about who would be the right actor to replace him.
Daniel Craig joked back in 2012 that he’s been trying to escape Bond since he first signed the contract, but ‘they won’t let me leave’. Spectre will be his fourth Bond outing
Much of the debate centres on whether it is time for a black actor to step into 007’s wing-tipped brogues.
Idris Elba would seem to be the leading contender, backed by rapper Kanye West, among others. Former 007 Pierce Brosnan has gone in to bat for Colin Salmon. Chiwetel Ejiofor is another popular choice.
At least a black Bond is one of the issues that Seydoux and Bellucci can agree on.
‘Why not a black Bond?’ says the Italian.
‘I don’t think it should be a matter of skin colour. It should be about the talent of the actor, the way he’s going to approach the character.’
‘The one thing I would rule out is a French Bond,’ says Seydoux. ‘James Bond can change in many ways but he always has to be British.’
Which leaves just one burning question: what is it like to kiss 007?
‘I haven’t tried yet,’ says Seydoux, elusively. ‘But we haven’t started shooting the sexy scenes. All I can say is that I hope it will happen.’
La Bellucci is somewhat more effusive in her response.
‘James Bond is my ideal man. He’s got the danger and the mystery but he is also a perfect English gentleman.
'That sense of danger is maybe his greatest quality. He’s looking for danger even when he’s not in action.
'Even if there is pain involved he cannot help looking for danger because that’s when he feels most alive.
'Of course, in real life, there can be too much danger in a man. But we all love a little danger. That’s where the excitement is to be found.
'Also, when we come up against danger, we discover how much strength we have.
‘And how good a kisser is Daniel Craig? I assume that he is very good indeed.
'To find out if this is more than an assumption on my part, you’ll have to watch the movie. Voila!’
‘Spectre’ will be released in the autumn
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2960446/Monica-Belluci-seducing-James-Bond-50.html#ixzz3SSdQdMSw
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
No comments:
Post a Comment