Ferilli was born in Rome on 28 June 1964. Her father, also from Rome, was a spokesman for the Italian Communist Party[1] in the region of Lazio, and her mother, who grew up in Fiano Romano, was a housewife and native of Caserta, Southern Italy. She attended the liceo classico Orazio ("Horatius classical high school") in Rome. After having unsuccessfully attempted to enter the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, she began her career as a film actress in secondary parts, acting in Sweets from a Stranger by Franco Ferrini, and small roles in second-tier films at the end of 1980s.
Ferilli was married to Italian lawyer Andrea Perone from 2003 to 2005.[2] Since 2011, she has been married to manager Flavio Cattaneo.[3]
She later also worked in theatre in some comedy productions by Pietro Garinei and Sandro Giovannini, including Rugantino and Let's Try More, and made appearances in some television comedies.
In 2000, she modeled for a Max calendar, which has sold over 1 million copies.[4]
On 24 June 2001, to celebrate the scudetto for AS Roma, she performed a dance at Circus Maximus in front of hundreds of thousands of fans. She had a lead role in the controversial 2003 film The Water ... the Fire by Luciano Emmer which debuted at the Venice Film Festival.
In 2008, she appeared in Virzì's Your Whole Life Ahead of You, once again winning the Silver Ribbon. In 2013, she was chosen as a judge in the twelfth edition of Friends of Maria De Filippi and also appeared in the subsequent season. In the same year, she starred in Eros Puglielli' TV series We Kiss Our Hands – Palermo New York 1958 on Canale 5, and was chosen as the opening presenter of the Roma Film Festival.[6]
Her 2013 performance as one of the protagonists in The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino helped the film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film Best Foreign Film on 2 March 2014.[7]
In 2015, she starred with Margherita Buy in Me, Myself and Her by Maria Sole Tognazzi, a lesbian retelling of Édouard Molinaro's La Cage aux Folles. The actress said she was very happy to have participated in a movie like this: "In a bigoted country like ours "Me and Her" can be important because it is a story that is not scary, to divide. I like to call it a homosexual story because the point of strength of this relationship is not gender, but feelings."[9] She was awarded a Golden Ciak at Best Actress for the film and was nominated for the David di Donatello and Silver Ribbon for Best Actress.
Beginning in April 2016, she was again in the jury of the 15th edition of Amici di Maria De Filippi with singers Anna Oxa and Loredana Bertè.
