Monica Bellucci: James Bond lady and star in Quebec feature film

Italian actress Monica Bellucci is the next Bond girl...or "lady" as she likes to say because at 50, she's the oldest actress to play a Bond girl.

Oldest and also busiest this fall.

The new Bond film, Spectre, comes out later this month. Bellucci is shooting a film now in Serbia with Emir Kusturica but she took time this week to come to Montreal for the red carpet for a new Quebec feature, Ville-Marie.

Intrigued by Quebec director's writing  

Ville-Marie tells the story of four people whose very different lives intersect one fateful night in downtown Montreal.

Starring Bellucci, Pascale Bussière, Patrick Hivon and Aloisha Schneider, it is the second feature for young Montreal filmmaker, Guy Édoin.

Édoin says he heard back from Bellucci barely four days after sending the script to her agent.

"I think we sent the screenplay on Wednesday and on Saturday, so four days later, her agent called us back to say, 'Monica has read the script, she likes it, but who the hell is Guy Édoin? Has he made a film before and can she meet him?'"

Édoin has made other films before, including Marécages, which was nominated for "Best First Film" at the Mostra Venice Film Festival in 2011.

Bellucci watched Marécages and met Édoin in Paris and the two hit it off.

She is full of praise for Édoin.

"Guy Édoin is a great director. He wrote something very beautiful. It is so well written. It doesn't happen all the time so it's my pleasure — great for me — to be in it," Bellucci said.

"He comes from Quebec but he could come from Poland, from New York, for me it doesn't change [anything]. For me, what is interesting is to have the chance to work with directors who are so different, who come from different experiences, different cultures. Sam Mendes, Emir Kursturica, Guy Édoin — that's why I do my work. I have a chance to get not just into different experiences as an actress but also as a human being.

"Even if I don't live the same situation as my character — I'm the mother of two daughters — but I have so many friends with sons. They tell me nothing is more painful than not communicating with your son."

Certainly Bellucci's star power is helping draw attention to the Canadian movie.

Her role in the film brought attention to Édoin's feature at TIFF this past September. She was in Montreal for this week's red carpet launch, and she'll be standing by Édoin's side in Rome this month where Ville-Marie is in the official competition at the Rome Film Festival.

Thoughts on Spectre

Bellucci says the role is quite a contrast to the woman she plays in the new James Bond film, Spectre. In place of a modern day mother trying to reconnect with her estranged son, she plays an Italian widow. 

"I play an Italian lady who comes from a world where men have the only power so she represents a woman from the past. She's completely different from the role of Madeleine, who's played by Léa Seydoux, who's a woman into action, modern. So it's like from the past to the future. It's very interesting to see those two women completely different in age and the way they act in life."

Daniel Craig's instinct of death 

"Daniel Craig is a great actor and very protective as a man. It's always strange when you come on a film set and you have an intimate scene to play. But it's easy because he's a gentleman, not just as James Bond but as Daniel Craig."

She thinks that Craig and Director Sam Mendes have created a new, modern James Bond.

"He's more human because he has as they say in France "le mal de vivre". He has this instinct of death and this makes him more real — someone that maybe people can get attached to."

On roles for mature women 

Bellucci makes no apologies for her age and her screen appeal.  

"You know in France we call actresses mademoiselle all their life. So we say Mlle Jeanne Moreau or Mlle Judy Dench, and I like that very much because it means that actresses are not a physique — they are souls and souls never get old. Actually they can become younger and younger. That's why I think age doesn't mean anything. It's all about energy."

But she's aware of challenges for women working both in the film industry and in general.

"We come from a long history where women have been treated very badly and we are going in an evolution. I want to hope in something  beautiful because I love men and I think that  we need each other. I think that men need women and women need men."

Ville-Marie opens in Quebec on Oct. 9, 2015.

Spectre opens in the UK. on Oct. 26 and in Canada on Nov. 6, 2015.