Monica Bellucci knows her way around large productions well enough to recognise genuine ambition.
The Italian actress, whose credits run from Irreversible and The Matrix Reloaded to Spectre, was filming 7 Dogs in Riyadh when she experienced what many actors hope for in productions off the beaten track.
“The best way to describe it is to know that you are in good hands, and that everything exterior to what you do is covered in order for you to focus on what you do,” she tells The National.
That included shooting in studios she describes as “world-class” in Riyadh, alongside a large international crew led by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the Moroccan-Belgian filmmakers behind Bad Boys for Life and Bad Boys: Ride or Die, as well as two of Egypt's most popular leading men, Ahmed Ezz and Karim Abdel Aziz.
“The organisation was amazing and this was my first time there in Saudi Arabia. The studio was huge. I felt really that I was in a big movie with great possibilities,” she says.
“You can have all of these ideas, but it is not always easy to do. Adil and Bilall knew how to manage this very well because they have done huge movies already. I felt protected by the production and by two directors who knew exactly what they wanted.
“I just had to do my work as an actor because everything was in control, and that is great for an actor. You just have to think about acting and nothing else, while also having some fun as well.”
7 Dogs, which is out now, uses a long-tested format that gives established actors room to loosen up. It is essentially a buddy-cop action film built around a regional cast and an international crime plot.
Ezz plays Khalid, a seasoned cop, while Abdel Aziz plays Ghali, a brash criminal temporarily released from prison to help bring down a criminal syndicate threatening to flood the region with illegal drugs.
Bellucci’s Julia Leone belongs to that underworld as one of the Seven Dogs.
“Each one of them is in a different region of the world,” she explains. “Julia Leone is one of the dogs. She is always one step ahead of the law, linked with many criminal organisations, and she is responsible for distribution across Europe. That is why this squad is after her.”
This is where El Arbi and Fallah’s experience becomes central to the genre with kinetic action sequences, using GoPro cameras, animation and slow motion to catch the chaos and occasional balletic quality of the fights.
“I love their work because they bring that energy on screen and on set,” Bellucci says. “It is a mix of genres. It is a thriller, an action movie, but sometimes it is also like a comic book, like a cartoon, with hints of comedy.
“They are able to make a huge entertaining movie, like Bad Boys 3 and 4, but at the same time they also know how to make films that are more personal and artistic, like Rebel. I have so much respect for them.”
Bellucci enjoyed the action scenes, which include gunplay and combat, performed with cool mirth and the fury of the double-crossed.
“To play this role was interesting because she is charismatic but cold at the same time, except for this Achilles heel that she has about this character Margot, this beautiful young woman who is always with her,” she says. “I am not used to action scenes, so it was a kind of new experience. It was fun and interesting to play this woman in power and control.
“When you play an antagonist like Julia Leone, you have to refrain from judging her and just enjoy stepping into a different skin. Actually, this is the work of an actor.”
Bellucci is just as warm when she talks about working with Ezz. “It was great because he is so incredible,” she says. Both he and Abdel Aziz “were so generous and so nice with me”, she adds.
“I could feel this beautiful relation, and they were so sweet, generous and open. This is something I felt when I was there, just the people around me. Everybody was so great and at the same time so professional.
“He is such a great actor. It is beautiful when you can have talent and humanity.”
Despite the film’s globe-trotting plot, which allows international stars such as Bollywood veterans Sanjay Dutt and Salman Khan to make swaggering appearances, much of 7 Dogs was shot on location in Riyadh.
King Abdullah Financial District doubles as the regional Interpol headquarters, while Boulevard City is used for a bustling downtown intersection in China.
“To be in Riyadh, a city in the middle of the desert, with this beautiful, strong nature, was incredible,” she says. “We were in the middle of the desert with these rock formations that seemed like another planet. You feel like you are at the edge of the world in some way.”
Asked whether she would encourage other international actors to take on Arabic productions, Bellucci does not hesitate. Film production, she says, is already moving in that direction.
“I think now everything is a collaboration between international productions,” she says. “There are productions from all over the world coming to the Middle East.
“In the Middle East now there are so many productions and so much is going on. Now when we talk, it is not just about one country, but countries working together and making films together.”
