Milla Jovovich Biography
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Milica Natasa Jovovic was born on December 17, 1975 in Kiev, Ukraine. Jovovich began modeling at eleven, when Richard Avedon featured her in Revlon’s “Most Unforgettable Women in the World” advertisements, and she continued her career with other campaigns for L’Oréal cosmetics, Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Donna Karan, and Versace. In 1988, she had her first professional acting role in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu, and later that year she appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction.
Following more small television appearances such as the “Fair Exchange” (1989) and a 1989 role as a French girl (she was 14 at the time then) on a Married with Children episode and film roles, she gained notoriety with the romance film Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991). She appeared in 1993′s Dazed and Confused alongside Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey. Jovovich then acted alongside Bruce Willis in the science fiction film The Fifth Element (1997), and later played the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). In 2002, she starred in the video game adaptation Resident Evil, which spawned three sequels: Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) and Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010).
She was born to a Yugoslavian Montenegrin doctor Bogić Jovović and Ukrainian actress mother Galina Loginova Jovović. Her last name is pronounced “yo-vo-vitsh.”, Much of her first five years was spent traveling back and forth between her father’s medical studies in London and their home in Russia.
After those five years, Milla’s father decided that his medical practice could not grow any more in the Russian economy. At age 5, Milla moved with her family to Sacramento, California. Unfortunately, during Milla’s childhood in the United States, she was antagonized by children who would never let her forget that she was a “commie” in the heat of the Cold War.
At age 11, Milla rose above this relentless torment to begin her acting career. Her first movie, released in 1988, was Two Moon Junction. From that point on, Milla was flying high. Upon her entry in the realm of modeling, the world was amazed by how beautiful and 11-year-old fashion model could be. Milla’s acting and modeling careers continued through her adolescence.
At age 18, Milla released her first album, The Divine Comedy. Many critics anticipated a cheesy pop album that they had come to expect from a model/actress turned singer/songwriter. To the surprise and pleasure of music-lovers everywhere, Milla’s first album was a beautiful collection of eclectic music that utilized instruments from around the world.
In 1997, Milla starred with Bruce Willis in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element. Her performance as Leeloo forced the world to recognize her as the incredible actress that she is. During the filming, there were stories of a love affair between Milla and Luc.
Milla and Luc were married in December, 1997. Milla’s last starring role came in Spike Lee’s He Got Game with Denzel Washington. She will star in Luc Besson’s upcoming Joan of Arc (slated to be released this November). In June 1999, she began performing on stage again, and there are rumors of an upcoming follow-up album to “The Peopletree Sessions”, Milla’s second album. Milla turns 24 this December.
While pursuing a successful modeling career, Jovovich also began acting, appearing in Zalman King’s softcore Two Moon Junction (1988) as Sherilyn Fenn’s little sister and Return to the Blue Lagoon, the 1991 sequel to the endearingly awful Brooke Shields flesh-fest Blue Lagoon (1980).
Following a role in Richard Linklater’s high-school slacker opus Dazed and Confused (1993), Jovovich took a break from acting and also put her modeling career on hold. She turned instead to music, recording an album, The Divine Comedy, that received surprisingly good reviews.
After touring for a few months, Jovovich returned to California and revived her acting career with the help of French director Luc Besson, who cast her in The Fifth Element in 1996.
An incredibly stylish sci-fi chase film set in the 23rd century, it featured Jovovich as a tangerine-haired alien, speaking in gibberish and wearing little more than artfully placed ace bandages designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier. The film put her back on the Hollywood radar, something given further assistance by Jovovich’s marriage to Besson (married in 1997, the two divorced in 1999).
The following year Jovovich had a substantial role as a prostitute in Spike Lee’s He Got Game, and, in 1999, she again stepped in front of the camera for Besson, this time to play the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. She received strong notices for her work, although the film itself earned less than a warm reception. The following year, Jovovich appeared in Wim Wenders’ futuristic The Million Dollar Hotel as a mental patient in the titular establishment. In 2001, Jovovich once again stepped into the lead, this time battling the undead in the action-oriented film version of the popular survival horror video game Resident Evil.
Milla married Shawn Andrews in 1992 during the filming of Dazed and Confused; the marriage was annulled soon after. She later married The Fifth Element director Luc Besson in 1997. They have since divorced. She is currently engaged to director Paul W. S. Anderson though recent reports are that this relationship has also broken down.
In 2007, Jovovich reprised her role as Alice in Resident Evil: Extinction, the third of the Resident Evil series. The film grossed an estimated US$24 million in 2,828 theaters on its opening weekend, topping the box office gross for that week. It opened stronger than its predecessor, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, which opened with $23 million in 3,284 theaters (over 450 more theaters than Extinction).
In a March 2006 interview, Jovovich said that she would not appear in another action film “for a long time”, expressing a desire to portray more diverse roles,[citation needed] but she added that talks of another sequel in the Resident Evil franchise were a “real possibility”. According to the March 9′ issue of interview magazine, Milla has hinted that she will indeed be back to reprise her role as “Alice” in the fourth installment. During a trip to Chateau Marmont, Jovovich told paparazzi that she was going to start shooting “number 4″ at the end of the year, hinting at the fourth Resident Evil film.
Jovovich was set to portray Amalia Bezhetskaya in The Winter Queen in 2007, however, with the announcement of her pregnancy early that year, the film was postponed until Summer 2008. Also in 2009, Jovovich starred in David Twohy’s A Perfect Getaway with Kiele Sanchez, Timothy Olyphant, and Steve Zahn. The film is a thriller about a newlywed couple (Milla and Zahn) on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Filming began Spring 2008.
Jovovich is set to play Lucetta, the wife of a jailed arsonist (played by Edward Norton) in Stone, a psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro. Filming began in May 2009 at the recently closed Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan.
Jovovich played the part of Dr. Abigail Tyler in the sci-fi thriller The Fourth Kind and will star in the psychological thriller Faces in the Crowd, which is written and directed by Julien Magnat; in the latter film, she plays the survivor of a serial killer’s attack that leaves her suffering from a condition called prosopagnosia, which renders her unable to recognize faces.
Jovovich will returned for her role as Alice, in the fourth movie of the Resident Evil series Afterlife (2010), which is directed by her husband Paul W. S. Anderson. She is set to star in David R. Ellis horror flick Bad Luck which based on a screenplay by David Schouw.
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