Bond girl wants la dolce vita for everybody
Dark, mysterious, naturally seductive. Almost a goddess. There are few Italian women who symbolize that classic, captivating look called "Mediterranean." Maria Grazia Cucinotta is one of them.
“As a woman, it is great to be considered sexy,” said Maria Grazia Cucinotta. File photo |
"As a woman, it is great to be considered sexy," said the glamorous actress.
She arrived in Beijing on Wednesday to promote the Italian Film Festival Italiana: Cinema Explores Italy.
She remembers the first time she came to the city in 1990 as a model. "The city has changed and so have I. When I first came, I was 18 years old. Now, I am 40 and have a 5-year-old daughter," she said.
A natural successor to the 1960s screen sirens Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren, Cucinotta has emerged as one of her country's most striking actresses.
Dreams of living the "Dolce Vita" portrayed by Italian director Federico Fellini saw Cucinotta head for fashion capital Milan at the age of 18 to launch a modeling career.
Cucinotta rose to international attention in 1994 with a role in the Academy Award-winning film The Postman (Il Postino), in which she smoldered as the unlikely love interest of a dim-witted mail man.
In her first American film, she co-starred with Vincent Spano and a distinguished supporting cast in A Brooklyn State of Mind, which enjoyed a modest success in 1998. Later, she appeared in an episode of the Emmy award-winning television series The Sopranos.
Hollywood parts followed quickly for the Sicilian, including a fleeting appearance as a Bond Girl opposite Pierce Brosnan in 1999's The World is Not Enough.
"It is always nice for a woman to be a Bond girl," she said. The Bond movie has been her only action flick as yet. "I really had fun with it. I wanted to try everything myself, because everything was so real."
John Woo is the only Chinese filmmaker Cucinotta has worked with in 2005's The Invisible Children, in which she acted and was also one of the producers.
"It is a series of vignettes highlighting the plight of disadvantaged youngsters around the world. It is not a sad story but an enlightening one about what is happening to those children," she said. "The story by John Woo is really powerful. He is a director who knows how to communicate through his lens."
The film, a collaboration between six international directors including John Woo, Spike Lee and Ridley Scott, was showcased at the 2005 Venice film festival.
Her favorite movie is Still Life by Chinese director Jia Zhangke. She said she was deeply impressed by the beautiful scenes of the lives of people in a small town. "I would love to co-operate with first-time filmmakers whether they are famous or not, because they are full of dreams and original ideas."
Her "Italianate" image has always been an essential part of her appeal. While some women seek to be something else, Cucinotta suffers no such identity crisis. One cannot imagine her as anything other than what she is.
"When you are different, you are unique. It is so fantastic being an actress because you have the chance to be a thousand different people when you act," she said. "But you have to go back to your real life, and if you don't have the right people around you, you forget about that."
She stayed in Beijing for a day and then left for Shanghai which is the next stop for the film festival. Cucinotta visited the Forbidden City and the 798 Art District in Dashanzi, and did some shopping.
"It's part of being a woman. Being a woman for me is to dress up, to be glamorous and to make people dream. When I was a child, I liked to dream and look at pictures of all these beautiful women. If you are an actress, you have to make people dream and be happy," she said.
(China Daily 01/19/2007 page18)
