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15 Minutes with Monica Bellucci


The Italian screen star talks to LAMag about her upcoming movie “Mafia Mamma,” the beauty of Italy and her favorite mob movie
A Bond girl in Spectre, Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ, and Dracula’s bride in Bram Stoker’s Dracula have been some of her major roles, but now, Monica Bellucci is lightening up the mood in the upcoming comedy, Mafia Mamma, which is led by Toni Collette.

Mafia Mamma follows a suburban mother [Collette] who unexpectedly inherits her late grandfather’s mafia empire in Italy. Guided by the firm’s trusted consigliere [Bellucci], she defies everyone’s expectations as she finds herself stuck in the middle of a deadly mob war.
LA Magazine: I loved Mafia Mamma and laughed a lot throughout.

Monica Bellucci: Me too. When I read the script I really laughed out loud. I couldn’t believe it, I thought it was crazy. I’m also a huge fan of Toni Collette, I didn’t know her in real life but when I met her, she had incredible energy. It was a beautiful moment of acting under the direction of ​​Catherine Hardwicke. Comedy is a genre that I’ve done very little in my career—I was grateful they asked for me and called my agent so I had the chance to play in a comedy again.
What are the challenges of doing a comedy in a language that is not your first?

It was a new experience. Also, when I saw the film with an audience at the premiere, we always said this is a comedy in the world of the mafia with a feminine twist, but actually, it is a pulp movie in some scenes completely. The thing is that even the most violent and extreme scenes are treated with a lot of ironies.
The relationship between Toni and I really helped to create all the affection and connection that carries these two characters in their adventure. Catherine was very helpful, too, because she gave us the freedom to experiment and to improvise, bouncing off of each other. We knew the lines a little but the scene came out and we completely improvised it. It came out so funny, sexy, and crazy and Catherine with her femininity brings elegance in the middle of violence.

Was that improvisation quite exciting and gave you more confidence in comedies going forward?
Yes because it’s not possible to improvise all the time. It hasn’t happened very often in my career. I did one movie that had a lot of improvising, Irréversible… but that’s another story. It’s not very often that you can do this because you follow a script—but in this comedy it was possible.
I grew up with mafia movies, like so many in my generation in Italy, such as Once Upon a Time in America, The Godfather, and Goodfellas, but I would have never imagined that one day I would play in a comedy like that- it’s really a new thing. Catherine really knows how to do many different genres because she jumped from Twilight to 13 to a mob movie and she was never scared to try something. It’s a difficult movie because there are so many actors, many scenes and I even got scared because sometimes the explosions went off behind me. I tell you, I played it cool but inside I was like “Oh my God, I’m going to burn!” Luckily nothing happened to us!
You grew up on mafia movies—do you have a favorite?
Once Upon a Time in America. Oh my God, It is so beautiful… Incredible. Many of the most beautiful Italian movies come from Sicily. It was so inspiring for all those movies. Also what inspires me are Italian movies from incredible directors like Fellini, Rossellini, Visconti and Di Sica and those leading ladies like Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida and Claudia Cardinale.
Even my character, Bianca, has the same Mediterranean energy because she’s very maternal, but she can be very dangerous. What really appealed to me about this character is this duality- in Bianca, there is mystery and Mediterranean warmth, but [she ’s] also very dangerous because she knows how to deal with violence. So it is a combination of different elements and that’s why I wanted to play this character.
What was it like to film in those Italian villages?
It was so beautiful, we were close to Rome. When I speak to many Americans they have never been to Europe so through this movie they can see Rome, it’s filmed in such a beautiful way. I come from Umbria, close to Tuscany—there are so many beautiful Middle Ages villages like that.
Did you become Toni’s tour guide to Italy?
Yeah, then we worked a lot because there was so much to do. I think she still comes to Italy now and she loves the country. I live between Paris and Rome and even though I spend most of my time in Paris, I love to go back to Rome or Umbria, because my family are there. Even though I live in Paris, I am still very close to my country and to my friends and my family.
Mafia Mamma will be released in theaters nationwide on April 14, 2023

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‘I am officially off the market’: When Margot Robbie revealed she made the ‘conscious’ decision of not dating actors


Margot Robbie revealed her decision to not date actors because of the media scrutiny that came with a public relationship of two high-profile actors
Back in 2015, A-lister Margot Robbie made a declaration that she would not be dating any actors. The actress may have alluded to her fiance Tom Ackerley, who she married the following year in 2016. In an exclusive interview with Marie Claire, she revealed that being in a relationship as an actor herself came with its own set of challenges. She believed that dating someone who was popular would add on to the media scrutiny.

Margot Robbie opened up on why she made a conscious decision to not date actorsTalking to Marie Claire, she claimed, “I am officially off the market.” She then shared the reasoning behind her decision and added, “I made a conscious decision not to date actors.” She continued to explain, “But not because I hate actors. That’s a nasty generalization to make, and that’s not the case. People take such an interest in your love life when you have a profile, it puts a lot of stress on a relationship.”
The Barbie actress continued, “So two people with profiles, I figure it’s just double the amount of scrutiny, and I’d like to avoid that at all costs.” This came after reports of her locking lips with Tarzan co-star Alexander Skarsgard started making rounds. It was reported that she was caught kissing the actor during the Sundance Film Festival.

Margot Robbie revealed she opted for a minimal lifestyle even after becoming an actorIn the interview, Robbie also opened up about how she was adapting to fame. She shared, “I have a normal 24-year-old life. If I were a waitress, I’d probably have the exact same lifestyle. I’d go to the same clubs I go to already, live in the same house with the same housemates, hang out with the same people.”
However, Margot Robbie tied the knot with Tom Ackerley who is an English producer and actor. The duo met on the sets of 2013 movie Suite Francaise where Tom was working as an assistant director. Post marriage, both of them launched their production company LuckyChap Entertainment.

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Monica Bellucci and Tin Burton at lunch in the restaurant in Selci Lama


For All Saints’ Day, the Hollywood star from Tiferno returned to his native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and then visit his parentsOn the occasion of the All Saints’ Day celebrations, the Hollywood star of Tiferno origin, Monica Bellucci, returned to her native Umbria to enjoy a moment of relaxation and to visit her father Pasquale and her mother Brunella.Flanked by her current partner Tim Burton, she went to lunch, together with about twenty old friends, at the Osteria del Musicista, which has always been her favorite restaurant, in Selci Lama.Menu dedicated to typical dishes of the area, which includes an appetizer with breadsticks lined with coppa, duck in porchetta and grilled pork livers, polenta with wild boar sauce accompanied by the very typical cappelletti in broth.To conclude, a dessert based on fried “ciaccia” with Nutella and roasted chestnuts.
Having paid the bill and greeted the restaurant owner and lifelong friend, Roberto Polchi, Monica brought home cappelletti and broth for a family dinner.

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‘Rocky’ Was Quite Different In His Original Screenplay, Sylvester Stallone Claims


Sylvester Stallone took his friend’s advice on a rewrite of the original screenplay to Rocky. A few tweaks later, he was on his way to major success.
In the new Netflix documentary Sly, Stallone discussed how he initially conceived of the project, which had a much harder edge. In the early version, Rocky was depicted as a “thuggish” character, inspired by Martin Scorsese’s crime drama, Mean Streets.

But Stallone’s perspective changed when a friend read the script and thought the boxer was too cruel for audiences to actually care about him.
Stallone recalled her crying.

“She goes, ‘I hate Rocky. I hate him. He’s cruel. He hits people. He beats them up.’”
Stallone took it to heart, and asked what he could do to soften the character.

“I said, ‘what if you stop short of it?’ Like, maybe he almost did. He could have, that’s his job, but he doesn’t?’ ‘That’d be nice,’” he added. “I said, ‘What if he had a girlfriend or something?’ ‘Yeah, that’s nice.’ So I go back, start writing that: ‘Girlfriend. Nice.’”
$117 million in box office later, a franchise was born.

Stallone also revealed that actor Dolph Lundgren sent him to the hospital during one fight scene in Rocky IV.
“Dolph Lundgren… he pulverized me,” Stallone says in the documentary. “Later that night, my heart started to swell—which happens when the heart hits the chest—and then my blood pressure went up to 260, and they thought I was going to be talking to angels. Next thing I know, I’m in intensive care, where I’m surrounded by nuns, and I thought, ‘OK, that’s curtains.’”
Stallone was in the hospital for nine days following the incident, praying for “one more round.”
“For the first minute of the fight, it is going to be a free-for-all,” Stallone told Lundgren. The Swedish actor joked in a separate interview that all he did was “obey orders,” explaining, “[Stallone] was the boss. I did what he told me.”
Doctors allegedly told Stallone that he received a blow to the ribs that made his heart rattle around in his ribcage, a condition typically seen in head-on collisions. “I did hit a bus, of sorts,” Stallone joked.

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