By François R
– Published on Sep 16, 2024 at 12:06 PM
Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci were a couple for 17 years. Although they are now separated, they remain on good terms. The couple has starred in a handful of films together. Vincent Cassel recalls an aborted erotic feature film with Monica Bellucci.
Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci formed the most glamorous couple in French-speaking cinema. And this for more than fifteen years, with a handful of films shot together. Inevitably, Irreversiblea punchy work signed Gaspar Noéin 2002, still remains the climax of their career. In 2010, Vincent Cassel spoke of a unusual project aborted accompanied by Monica Bellucci who was still his wife. An erotic film that was supposed to be shot by the same Gaspar Noé. Today, this film exists but without the star couple formed by Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci…
Vincent Cassel: his love at first sight for Monica Bellucci
In 1996, Vincent Cassel had just come out of the triumph of Hatea social firebrand produced by Mathieu Kassovitz awarded at Cannes Film Festival. The actor, son of the luminary Jean-Pierre Casselbecomes the new hope of a French cinema lacking a male figure. II embarked on a small romantic drama project called The Apartment…
At that time, Vincent Cassel did not know that he was going to meet the first woman of his life on this shoot. Monica Bellucci, Italian actress, seen in the Dracula of Francis Ford Coppolabursts into Cassel's life like a big fire extinguisher in the mouth. The couple, who would last seventeen years and have two children, would make several films together.
Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci have already filmed together
Among the feature films that the couple has made, we especially remember Irreversible. A shocking, violent, brutal film, a real earthquake in Cannes in 2002. Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci play a couple destroyed by an assault and then a rape. What follows is a violent spiral in which the guy wants to avenge his partner. But Irreversible was not the initial project.
In fact, Gaspar Noé initially approached Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci in a nightclub. The French-speaking Italian-Argentine filmmaker wants to shoot an erotic melodrama with explicit sex scenes. He then approaches the leading couple of French cinema, explaining that he wants them to be the actors in this film. It's a waste of time.
The actor discusses this aborted erotic film with Monica Bellucci
Today, this erotic film, even pornographic because having unsimulated sex scenes shot by X-linersexists. It is about Lovereleased in 2015. But neither Vincent Cassel nor Monica Bellucci took part in this project, which was as unusual as it was controversial. The actor ofand Hatred recalls the director's request toIrreversible.
“One day Gaspar asked me: 'Don't you want to make a sex movie with Monica? You and me? A real love movie but with explicit sex scenes.'”, reveals Vincent Cassel in an interview given to GQ in 2010. He added: “I told him to stop his bullshit. I told Monica about it and she replied immediately: 'Why do you say that ?'”
The Cassel and Bellucci couple get into the game: “I thought about it […] Here we are, Monica and I, in bed, watching Stories of O […] But every time these scenes happened, we looked at each other and said that it was not possible! We did not want to put ourselves in this position.” In the end, they won't shoot this but Irreversible. A strange genesis for a film that has become a cult classic.
