Bella Bellucci.(Italian actress Monica Bellucci)

In the last decade Monica Bellucci has emerged as one of Europe's most desired and respected leading ladies, earning roles in such potent films as Giuseppe Tornatore's "Malena" and Gaspar Noe's "Irreversible." In the rest of the world, the 34-year-old Italian beauty has remained something of a tantalizing unknown--posing once on the cover of Esquire clad only in black caviar and appearing in a smattering of Hollywood films, like "Under Suspicion" and "Tears of the Sun." This week everyone else will catch up to what the Europeans have been raving about. Beginning Wednesday, Bellucci will be front and center on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, first as its mistress of ceremonies and then, on Thursday, for the premiere of "The Matrix Reloaded," one of two sequels in which she plays the beguiling Persephone.

Is this the beginning of a beautiful Hollywood career for Bellucci? Don't bet on it. "I'm not a Hollywood actress," she says over mint tea at Casablanca's Riad Salam hotel. She's in town to film "Secret Agents," a French spy thriller in which she stars opposite her husband, French actor Vincent Cassel. "I'm not American. I'm European, and I need to express things that are part of my culture." Her role models are Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Claudia Cardinale and Anna Magnani--the formidable actresses of the golden age of Italian cinema. But, some say, her roles have not yet allowed her to explore the same range as her predecessors. "Monica has the joie de vivre and the appeal of Sophia Loren, but she hasn't been given the kinds of parts yet where her beauty is not in the way," says Lambert Wilson, who plays her husband, Merovingian, in "The Matrix Reloaded." "When she does get them, I think she will surprise everyone." That may happen as soon as next year, when she appears as Mary Magdalene in "The Passion," Mel Gibson's retelling of the last days of Jesus Christ, in Latin and Aramaic. "Monica has a certain glamour, to be sure," says Frederic Schoendoerffer, her director in "Secret Agents." "But at the same time, she's very natural. That's what's so interesting about her."

The only child of a transport-company owner and a housewife, Bellucci was raised in Citta di Castello, a small town in Umbria. At 18, she left to study law at the University of Perugia, and earned some pocket money working part time as a fashion model. After a year, she gave up law and moved to Milan, where she joined Elite Model Management and quickly became the muse of the Italian designers Dolce & Gabbana. Francis Ford Coppola saw some pictures of Bellucci in a fashion magazine and hired her for what she calls a "tiny, tiny, tiny part" in "Dracula." "It was magic," she recalls, her husky voice tinged with an Italian accent. "To start with someone as important and talented as Francis Ford Coppola--beautiful."

But Bellucci knew she wasn't ready for her close-up yet. "I always loved acting," she says, "but from where I came, to become an actress seemed so far and difficult." She took it slow and easy, moving first to Rome to study her craft, then to Paris to launch what she calls "an international career." She starred in a series of small French films, ...