Bellucci’s Private Life
This article should probably have been titled ‘Alan Arkin Wins Lottery’, but the sidebar only offers us writers so many characters. Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gylenhaal and Monica Bellucci have all signed on to join THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE with Robin Wright Penn and Alan Arkin. The film is about a 50-something year old housewife (Penn) who starts exploring her sexuality after her husband cheats with a younger woman. Arkin plays the husband. Reeves will play the housewife’s young buck, Gylenhaal will play Penn’s mother in flash-backs, and in a remarkable twist of fate, Bellucci will play Arkin’s ex-wife. And therein lies today’s JoBlo.com life lesson: Alan Arkin is 73. Cuba Gooding Jr is 40. That thirty years proves today that there is no substitute for experience. Arkin won an Oscar and used it to finagle himself a film role where he’s banging Monica Bellucci, Gooding Jr used his to get himself a role where he’s probably banging Greg Kinnear.
Reeves, Gyllenhaal, Arkin, Bellucci to star in ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’
Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin and Monica Bellucci have signed on to star in dramedy ‘The Private Lives of Pippa Lee’.
They will join an already confirmed cast of Robin Wright Penn, Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder, reports Variety.
Director Rebbeca Miller has adapted the script from her forthcoming novel that “centers on a dutiful 50-year-old wife whose husband falls for a younger woman, freeing her to explore her buried sensuality and leading to a very quiet nervous breakdown.”
Arkin plays the husband who leaves Wright Penn for Ryder. Bellucci will play his first wife.
Reeves will play Wright Penn’s younger lover, while Gyllenhaal plays Wright Penn’s diet pill-addicted mother in flashback sequences.
Moore has signed on to play a lesbian novelist in the pic.
Elevation Filmworks is producing along with Plan B Entertainment.
London-based Lumina Films is executive producing the film and handling worldwide sales, with CAA partnering on the sale of domestic distribution rights.
Jean-Luc De Fanti and Winchester Capital Partners are on board to finance the film as executive producers.
The film is scheduled to begin principal photography in April in Connecticut.
Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin and Monica Bellucci Join Pippa LeeSend Article Discuss Article Text Version Submit Scoops
Pippa Lee is getting quite a bit of talented company. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the acting foursome of Keanu Reeves, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Alan Arkin and Monica Bellucci have all signed on for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.
Robin Wright Penn has already signed on as the title character, and Julianne Moore and Winona Ryder have joined the cast as well. The film will be written and directed by Rebecca Miller, daughter of the playwright Arthur Miller and wife to Daniel Day-Lewis, based off her own novel of the same name.
The film centers on a 50-year-old housewife (Penn) who becomes free to explore other sexual avenues after she discovers her husband (Arkin) has been cheating on her with a younger lover (Ryder). Reeves will play Penn’s younger lover while Moore will portray a lesbian novelist.
The film is scheduled to start shooting this April in Connecticut.
Italian beauty Monica watches snow polo action in Switzerland
Polo is a sport usually played during the summer months on a lush green field. The international chukka set and VIP polo fans - including Italian actress Monica Bellucci - were in the exclusive Swiss resort of St Moritz this week, however, for a very unique winter version of the jet-set sport.
The beautiful The Matrix actress - who has just signed up to star in new dark drama 1.30 Train - was among 25,000 spectators checking out the faced-paced action at the Cartier Polo World Cup On Snow.
Part of the sport’s ‘World Tour’, which includes around 30 major tournaments, the event is one of the highlights of the European winter social season. And in the Engadine - the area between the polo field and the VIP marquee - the rich and famous mingle with locals and holidaymakers, all sharing in the unique atmosphere of the prestigious three-day event.
Monica, oh my darling
The beautiful Italian actress Monica Bellucci is set to make a hush-hush visit to the city, as a part of the French film festival, Rendezvous with French Cinema, later this month.
The 43-year-old actress, who is coming down specially to grace the screening of her film The Stone Concile (Le Concile de Pierre), is planning a brief holiday in the country. A source says, “Yes, Monica will be in the city at the end of this month to attend the French film festival. She is one of our special guests and her name has been kept under wraps. Lavish arrangements are being made for the actress’ first ever trip to the city.”
However it’s still not clear if husband and fellow actor Vincent Cassel and daughter Deva are going to accompany the Irreversible actress.
Sources indicate that a few leading Bollywood filmmakers have already expressed their desire to meet the actress. Belucci was earlier in talks with the London-based filmmaker Jug Mundhra, who wanted her to essay the role of Sonia Gandhi in a film.
Mohamed Bendjebbour, audio-visual attaché from the French Embassy says, “Monica’s film The Stone Consile will be screened during the festival. As far as Monica’s presence at the screening is concerned, I cannot comment on anything right now.”
Monica Bellucci Biography
Film critics are quick to compare Monica Bellucci to previous Italian beauties, but she is her own brand of sultry icon. With roles as a topless vampire in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a taciturn war widow in Mal鑞a (2000), a charmed courtesan in Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2002), and a sci-fi vixen in the Matrix sequels (2003), Bellucci has proved to be a bold blend of earthy and ethereal, actress and star.
Born on September 30, 1968, Bellucci grew up in the small Italian village of Citta di Castello, where her father owned a trucking company. At 18, she enrolled at the University of Perugia with plans to study law. To pay her tuition, Bellucci started modeling. Two years later, she dropped out of school to relocate to Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. Besides strutting the cat walk in fashion shows, Bellucci appeared in international advertising campaigns for designers such as Dolce & Gabbana. With her modeling career in full swing, she began to take acting classes and made her screen debut in the television film Vita Coi Figli (Life With the Sons) in 1990.
After acting in several Italian features, Bellucci graced American screens for the first time as one of Dracula’s (Gary Oldman) brides in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), which also starred Keanu Reaves and Winona Ryder. She subsequently returned to Italy to appear in the heist film I Mitici (The Heroes) (1994) and the children’s movie Palla di Neve (Snowball) (1995). As time passed, Bellucci grew increasingly frustrated with the failure of Italy’s film industry to promote its projects abroad. She starred opposite Ben Kingsley and Dominique Sanda in the American television movie Joseph (1995), before looking for work in French films.
Bellucci made her French-language debut in 1996’s award-winning romance L’Appartement (The Apartment). She earned a C閟ar nomination for her performance in the role, as well as began dating her co-star, French actor Vincent Cassel. The couple (who married a few years later) re-teamed onscreen immediately, portraying comically troubled lovers in the gender-bending romance Come Mi Vuoi (As You Want Me) (1996) and murderous bank robbers in Jan Kounen’s infamous thriller Dobermann (1997).
In 2000, Bellucci returned to Hollywood to play Gene Hackman’s estranged trophy wife in Under Suspicion. The film’s director, Stephen Hopkins, had seen L’Appartement on a transatlantic flight and requested that she star in the thriller. That same year, the actress earned unprecedented worldwide acclaim for her performance as the title character in Mal鑞a. Helmed by award-winning director Giuseppe Tornatore, the film featured Bellucci as a quiet young bride who is left alone in a small Sicilian town when her husband goes off to fight in World War II. Stunningly attractive, she struggles to keep her dignity as she is spurned by the female villagers and preyed upon by the men. Bellucci followed up Mal鑞a’s success with another international hit, Christophe Gans’ genre hybrid Le Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) (2002). The stylish cross between period piece and kung-fu flick (which also starred Cassel) was the fourth most successful film of its year in France. After conquering Europe, the film became an art house hit in the States and Bellucci received a nomination for Best Supporting Actress from the U.S. Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films.
The subject of numerous fan sites and men’s magazine articles, Bellucci went on to star as the seductive Queen of the Nile in the comic book adaptation Ast閞ix & Ob閘isk: Mission Cl閛p鈚re. In 2001, she joined Dracula co-star Keanu Reeves in the cast of the highly anticipated follow-ups to The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003). Soon after, Bruce Willis personally chose Bellucci to play a humanitarian doctor whom he must save from war-torn Nigeria in Tears of the Sun, director Antoine Fuqua’s follow-up to his hit Training Day (2001).
In 2004, Bellucci’s momentum continued to build when she starred as Mary Magdalene in The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson’s self-produced blockbuster retelling of the final 12 hours of Jesus Christ. In the wake of that film’s success, Bellucci teamed with two other renowned directors, Terry Gilliam and Spike Lee, with roles in The Brothers Grimm and She Hate Me, respectively. Aubry Anne D’Arminio, All Movie Guide