You’re used to Bond Girls emerging from the ocean in knife-belted bikinis, and lounging in diamond-encrusted lingerie, and even in skin-tight black leather, but you’re not used to seeing a Bond Girl like this.
That’s because Monica Bellucci, who stars in the latest Bond film Spectre, is not your average Bond Girl – she’s actually a Bond Woman.
At 50 years old, Bellucci outstrips her predecessors as the oldest woman to ever play a Bond love interest (she takes the mantle from Honor Blackmon, who was 39 whilst filming Goldfinger).
“My first thought was, ‘How can I be a Bond girl at 50?’” Bellucci said of her casting, “I just blurted out, ‘I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, I’m a mature woman. Do I have to replace Judi Dench?’”
“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,” said Bellucci, “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,” she continued, “I’d prefer to be called a Bond Woman or perhaps a Bond Lady.”
Monica as Lucia.
The ‘Bond Lady’ that Bellucci will be playing is no simpering Playmate, either. Unlike her predecessors, ‘Pussy Galore’, ‘Holly Goodhead’, and ‘Plenty O’Toole’, Bellucci’s character will be neither overly suggestive, nor simple eyecandy.
Her character, Lucia Sciarra, a widow and former lover of Bond, who becomes entangled with Bond while he is on a mission.
Bellucci is only the third Bond Woman to be older than the Bond actor.
Spectre is set for release in October.
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