'I told Sam Mendes he'd be a hero with women for casting me': Monica Belluci on seducing Bond at... 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.