In her native Italy, as well as in France, Monica Bellucci is regarded as a modern day Sophia Loren.

Now it is the turn of the rest of the world to be captivated by the raven-haired beauty for she will star in three major Hollywood movies this summer - beginning with a femme fatale role in this year's most eagerly awaited film, The Matrix Reloaded.

As Persephone in the Matrix sequel, Bellucci will try to lure Neo (Keanu Reeves) to the dark side in the special effects extravaganza about conflict between humans and enslaving machines.

Months of hard work in Australia filming Reloaded, to be followed by the third part of the trilogy The Matrix Revolutions set for release in November, was a big departure from the more intimate and intense European productions she's used to in films like L'Appartment which won her the French equivalent of an Oscar in 1996.

"My character is very dangerous and sensual, and with a kind of sense of humour too," she explains.

Persephone is inspired by the ancient Greek myth, Bellucci adds. "She was the daughter of Zeus and she was kidnapped by the king of the underworld and allowed to come back into the living world, so she's mysterious and very dangerous."

Born in the village of Citta di Castello in Umbria, Bellucci originally pursued a legal career. But she began modelling on the side to earn money as a student and in 1988 she moved to Milan and joined Elite Model Management. Two years after that, she made her television acting debut.

Aside from The Matrix Reloaded, we are also going to see this fast-rising international star in two other major roles this year - as an American doctor in Africa with Bruce Willis in the action thriller Tears of the Sun, and as Mary Magdalene in Mel Gibson's life-of-Christ drama The Passion.

In this film she will speak Latin throughout.

Last year, she shocked audiences when her character endured a graphic, nine-minute rape scene in the sexually violent Irreversible.

Bellucci says of those who have been taken aback by some of her roles: "They think, 'My God, this girl, look at the stuff she does!'

"But I do things, not because I'm crazy or to show off, I like to get through difficult situations.

I have the impression I can grow much more as an actress that way."

In her films, some of her characters suffer for their beauty. Men want her body and women are jealous. It's something Bellucci says she can understand.

"People have a strange reaction when you're pretty," she says. "But it is not some thing that is a problem for me, I can tell you."

"Also, in life, all those things are going to change because beauty is a biological moment.

"I'm beautiful today, but I'm going to change in a few years."

At the moment, she says, she is enjoying her relative anonymity in Hollywood.

"When I go to France or I'm in Rome sometimes I feel I'm not free, but here, I'm free to walk down the street, to go shopping even."

When The Matrix Reloaded is unleashed simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic, all that is about to change, for good.