Milla Jovovich (  /ˈjoʊvəvɪtʃ/ YOH-və-vich; born Milica Jovović (Serbian Cyrillic: Милица Јововић; Russian: Милица Йовович) on December 17, 1975) is an American model, actress, musician and fashion designer. During her career, she has appeared in a number of science fiction and action-themed films, earning her the sobriquet "reigning queen of kick-butt" from the music channel VH1 in 2006.

 

Jovovich began modeling when Herb Ritts photographed her for the cover of the Italian magazine Lei ("She") in 1987. Richard Avedon then featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements and she also appeared in campaigns for L'Oréal cosmetics, Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Donna Karan and Versace. In 1988, she made her first professional acting appearance in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu and, later that year, she appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction. After a few more lower-profile film and television appearances, such as in the Married... with Children episode "Fair Exchange" (1989) as a French girl, Jovovich gained notoriety following her appearance in the 1991 romance film Return to the Blue Lagoon. In 1992 and 1993, she appeared as Christian Slater's character's love interest in Kuffs and as one of the teenagers in the comedy coming-of-age film Dazed and Confused, before her breakthrough alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman in the 1997 Luc Besson science-fiction film The Fifth Element. She then appeared as the central character Joan of Arc in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), also directed by Besson, who was now her husband.

 

In 2002, Jovovich starred in the film adaptation of the video game Resident Evil, which, although disliked by critics, proved very successful.To date, four sequels have followed in which she has reprised her role of "Alice": Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)and Resident Evil: Retribution (2012).

 

In addition to her modeling and acting career, Jovovich has released a music album, The Divine Comedy, in 1994. She continues to release demos for other songs on her official website and contributes to film soundtracks. She has yet, however, to release another album. In 2003, she and model Carmen Hawk created the clothing line Jovovich-Hawk. It ceased operations in early 2008.Prior to its demise, its items could be found at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Harvey Nichols and over fifty other stores around the world.

 

Jovovich now has her own production company, Creature Entertainment.

 

Early life and family

Milla Jovovich was born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, former Soviet Union, the daughter of Bogdan Bogdanović Jovović, a Serbian pediatrician, and Galina Jovovich, a Russian stage actress. She was raised in the Russian Orthodox religion.

 

Milla's paternal family's estate was in Zlopek near Peć. Her paternal great-grandfather, Bogić Camić Jovović, was a flag-bearer of the Vasojevići clan and an officer in the guard of King Nicholas I of Montenegro; his wife's name was Milica, after whom Milla was named. Her paternal grandfather, Bogdan Jovović, was a commander in the Pristina military area, and later investigated finances in the military areas of Skopje and Sarajevo, where he uncovered massive gold embezzlement. He was punished for refusing to convict a friend of the crime. Later, the government briefly imprisoned him in Goli otok for refusing to testify. When he feared that he could be arrested again, he escaped to Albania and later moved to Kiev. A different version of the story claims that he was the one who took the gold. Milla's father, Bogich, later joined Bogdan in Kiev, where he and his sister graduated in medicine.In 2000, her grandfather, Bogdan Jovović, died in Kiev.Her mother was born in Tuapse (now in Russia) but moved in her childhood to Dnipropetrovsk (now in Ukraine). Her mother played a part in several films, including Vykrutasy, and the upcoming American silent movie Silent Life (2012).

 

In 1980, when Milla was five years old, her family left the Soviet Union for political reasons and moved to London. They subsequently moved to Sacramento, California, settling in Los Angeles seven months later. Milla's parents divorced soon after their arrival in Los Angeles.

 

In 1988, as a result of her father's relationship with a woman from Argentina, Milla's half-brother Marco Jovovich, was born.Milla's mother attempted to support the family with acting jobs, but found little success, and eventually resorted to cleaning houses to earn money. Her mother and father both provided cooking and cleaning services for director Brian De Palma.Milla's father was incarcerated for participating in an illegal operation concerning medical insurance; he was given a 20-year sentence in 1994,but was released in 1999 after serving five years in an American prison. According to Milla, "Prison was good for him. He's become a much better person. It gave him a chance to stop and think."

 

Milla attended public schools in Los Angeles, and became fluent in English in three months (as is common with young children).In school, she was teased by classmates because she had immigrated from the Soviet Union during the Cold War: "I was called a commie and a Russian spy. I was never, ever, ever accepted into the crowd."At age 12, in seventh grade, Milla left school to focus on modeling.She has stated that she was rebellious during her early teens, engaging in drug use, shopping mall vandalism, and credit-card fraud. In 1994, she became a U.S. citizen.

 

Modeling career

At the age of nine, Jovovich began going to modeling auditions.She was discovered by Gene Lemuel, who shot test photos of her and later showed them to Herb Ritts in LA.The next day Ritts booked her for the cover of Lei, an Italian magazine.After Jovovich booked Lei, she was signed by Prima Modeling Agency then Richard Avedon hired her for Mademoiselle. Avedon was head of marketing at Revlon at the time, and chose Jovovich to appear with models Alexa Singer and Sandra Zatezalo in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements.In 1988, she made her first professional model contract. Jovovich was among other models who ignited controversy by becoming involved in the industry at a young age.

 

Later, Jovovich made it to the cover of The Face, which led to new contracts and covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Since then, she has graced over one hundred magazine covers, including Seventeen, Mademoiselle, Glamour, Harper's Bazaar, and InStyle. Her modeling career has included various campaigns for Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Damiani, Donna Karan, Gap, Versace, Calvin Klein, DKNY, Coach, Giorgio Armani, H&M, and Revlon. Since 1998, Jovovich has been an "international spokesmodel" for L'Oréal cosmetics. She also had a minor cameo in Bret Easton Ellis' novel Glamorama, a satire of society's obsession with celebrities and beauty.

 

In an article published in 2002, she was said to be Miuccia Prada's muse and in an article published in 2003, Harpers & Queen magazine claimed Jovovich was Gianni Versace's "favourite supermodel".In 2004, Jovovich topped Forbes magazine's "Richest Supermodels of the World" list, earning a reported $10.5 million. In 2006, Jovovich was picked up by Spanish clothing line Mango as their new spokesmodel and is currently featured in their ad campaigns; she can also be seen in advertisements for Etro. She has noted that "Modeling was never a priority" and it instead enables her "to be selective about the creative decisions [she] make[s]".

 

Awards and nominations

Jovovich has been nominated for numerous awards. In 1992, she was nominated for Young Artist Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture Award for her role in Return to the Blue Lagoon.

 

In 1997, she was nominated for the Saturn Best Supporting Actress award, the Blockbuster Entertainment Favorite Newcomer Award, the MTV Movie Best Fight Scene Award (between her and aliens), for her role as Leeloo in The Fifth Element.

 

In 2002, she received a nomination for the Saturn Best Actress Award for her role as Alice in Resident Evil and won Best Actress in a sci-fi/action film for Resident Evil: Extinction from the Scream Awards in 2008.

 

She has also been nominated for Best Horror Actress for playing Dr. Abigail Tyler in The Fourth Kind for Scream Awards 2010 and won the Hollywood Spotlight Award for Best Actress at the 14th Annual Hollywood Awards Gala for her role as Lucetta in Stone.

 

Music career

Jovovich had begun working on a music album as early as 1988, when she was signed by SBK Records after the company heard a demo she recorded.In August 1990, she asserted in an interview that the then-forthcoming album would be "a mix between Kate Bush, Sinéad O'Connor, This Mortal Coil, and the Cocteau Twins".After it was initially presented by SBK strictly as a pop album, Jovovich protested, insisting on using her personal poetry for lyrics and recording her own instrumental material.Jovovich had written the songs when she was fifteen, with the exception of a Ukrainian folk song, "In a Glade", that she covered. In April 1994, billed under her first name, she released The Divine Comedy, a title that was a reference to the epic poem by Dante Alighieri of the same name. Jovovich had chosen the title after seeing Russian artist Alexis Steele's proposed cover artwork sketch for the then untitled album. Jovovich found that the sketch had "all the struggle that I'm singing about. It IS the divine comedy".The Divine Comedy was well received by critics, and featured pop-infused traditional Ukrainian folk songs that led to comparisons with musicians Tori Amos and Kate Bush.John McAlley of Rolling Stone called the album "remarkable", "strikingly mature and rich in invention", and as featuring "angst-laced poetry with vivid melodies and arrangements that find a common spirit in synth pop, European folk and psychedelic dream rock".Jovovich released the track "Gentleman Who Fell", with an accompanying music video, as the sole single from the album. The music video was originally directed by Lisa Bonet and featured Harry Dean Stanton, but Jovovich was unsatisfied with the results and decided to film another version. The second version of "Gentleman Who Fell", a homage to Maya Deren's short film Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), was subsequently played on MTV. Jovovich toured the United States during most of 1994 to promote the album, opening for Toad the Wet Sprocket and Crash Test Dummies, as well as playing smaller acoustic sets. Jovovich had opted to perform in smaller and more intimate settings, turning down a musical appearance on Saturday Night Live. Milla has also been collaborating musically with longtime friend and musician Chris Brenner, who co-wrote with her on the Divine Comedy Album and who was the musical coordinator for the supporting tour. She and Brenner met in 1993 and have been working creatively on different ventures ever since. Following The Divine Comedy, she expressed interest in releasing a second album, having had ten songs ready for a future recording that was intended for a Summer 1996 release.Despite the appearance of a lo-fi field recording The People Tree Sessions in 1998, Jovovich has yet to release a second album.

 

In May 1999, Jovovich along with Chris Brenner formed an experimental band called Plastic Has Memory, in which she wrote the songs, sang, and played electric guitar.The band was "[m]uch heavier and darker than the vaguely Ukrainian folk-sounding elements of her first album" and had a similar sound to a grunge and trip hop Portishead.Plastic Has Memory played about a dozen shows in Los Angeles and New York City for a potential Virgin Records album release, one of which Mick Jagger had attended. Though Plastic Has Memory was featured on Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit celebrity compilation album, the group never formally released a record and is no longer together.

 

Jovovich has contributed tracks to several of her film soundtracks, including The Million Dollar Hotel (2000) and Dummy (2002), and has also provided songs for the soundtracks of films in which she has not acted such as Underworld (2003) produced by musician Danny Lohner who was the bass player in Nine Inch Nails for many years. Her song "The Gentlemen Who Fell" was featured on the The Rules of Attraction soundtrack in 2002. In 2001, Jovovich was one of many celebrities whose vocals were featured in a cover of "We are Family" to raise money for the American Red Cross. She has appeared as guest vocalist on the song "Former Lover" on Deepak Chopra's album, A Gift of Love II: Oceans of Ecstasy (2002) and Legion of Boom (2004) by The Crystal Method.

 

Since 2003, Jovovich has worked with musician Maynard James Keenan, of Tool and A Perfect Circle, on his Industrial side project Puscifer, contributing vocals to the track "REV 22:20", which was featured on various film soundtracks in its original or a remixed form. As of January, 2009, she can be heard collaborating with Maynard and Danny Lohner on the Puscifer track called, "The Mission." She also performed the song at the first live Puscifer performance on February 13, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Danny Lohner, and longtime music collaborator Chris Brenner currently continue to record and perform with Jovovich who has made several highly praised appearances in recent years.

 

Jovovich continues to write songs which she refers to as "demos", and which are provided for free in MP3 format on her official website. She provides license to freely download and remix the tracks, but reserves the right to sell and issue them.

 

She announced via Twitter and her official website a new single called Electric Sky would be released. It was released on May 18, 2012 and it'll be part of an EP she will be releasing. The date of its release has not been announced. The song was presented at the Life Ball in 2012.

 

Fashion design

Jovovich and fellow model Carmen Hawk launched a line of clothing called Jovovich-Hawk in 2003. The pair opened a showroom in New York City's Greenwich Village on September 13, 2005, and the line lasted for four years. All of the dresses for Jovovich-Hawk line were designed by herself and her partner Carmen Hawk, in The atelier is based in Los Angeles, but pieces could be found at Fred Segal in Los Angeles, Harvey Nichols, and over 50 stores around the world. Vogue has praised the line for its "girl-about-town cult status most designers spend years trying to achieve."

 

In November 2006, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) and US Vogue nominated Jovovich-Hawk for the CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund Award. Jovovich-Hawk was nominated as a finalist, although Doo-Ri Chung took the top prize.

 

In 2007, Jovovich and Hawk designed the costume for Jovovich's character in Resident Evil: Extinction. The shorts Alice, her character, wears are a variation on the 'Alice Star' Shorts from the Spring 2007 collection.In late 2007, Jovovich-Hawk signed a deal to design a diffusion collection for Target's Go International campaign, following in the footsteps of Luella, Paul & Joe and Proenza Schouler.

 

In late 2008, Jovovich and Hawk mutually agreed to end the business due to increased demands on their time. Jovovich explained, "I'm an artist. I'm not someone who can deal with shipping rates and taxes."

 

Personal life

Jovovich currently resides in homes in Los Angeles and New York with her husband, film writer and director Paul W. S. Anderson, whom she married on 22 August 2009.The two met while working on Resident Evil, which Anderson wrote and directed, and in which Jovovich starred. Anderson proposed to Jovovich in 2003, but the two separated for a period of time before becoming a couple again. On November 3, 2007, Jovovich gave birth to her and Anderson's first child, a daughter, Ever Gabo Anderson. The child was born at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, one day before Jovovich's due date of November 4.

 

Prior to her relationship with Anderson, Jovovich married on-screen boyfriend Shawn Andrews in 1992 while filming Dazed and Confused together. Andrews was 21, while Jovovich was 16; the marriage was annulled by her mother two months later.Shortly after the annulment, Jovovich moved to Europe with her friend and musician Chris Brenner where she met and then lived with her new boyfriend, Jamiroquai ex-bassist Stuart Zender, in London from May 1994 to October 1995.From 1995 to 1997, she dated photographer Mario Sorrenti. In Las Vegas, she married The Fifth Element director Luc Besson in 1997 where they went skydiving directly after the ceremony; they divorced in 1999. Between 1998 and 2001, she befriended the young poet and musician, Anno Birkin, and each was the other's inspiration behind many of their compositions. Jovovich became involved with Birkin romantically just before his death in a car accident on November 8, 2001. Jovovich also dated former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante, for seven months in 2000.

 

In 2006, Jovovich mentioned her interest in publishing her private diaries as an autobiography. She had kept a diary since childhood, writing about the locations she has traveled and "all the mad things that [she's] done". Jovovich has stated that she views publication as a way to "get it all into a book—like an autobiography", and it would have a "diary feel to it". However, she also commented that she was "...not sure how interested anyone would be in publishing it, or reading it, for that matter."However, in 2010, Jovovich claimed the autobiography to be pure rumor stating, "I have no idea where that came from. I guess somebody said something about me publishing my diaries online and when I heard that I was like, 'No way'".

 

In addition to being a smoker,Jovovich has advocated the legalization of cannabis, and appeared in a spread and on the cover for High Times. In an article published in 1994, she admitted that her only vices were cigarettes and cannabis. She practices yoga and meditates often in attempts to live a healthy lifestyle; although not affiliating with any specific religion, she prays and considers herself a "spiritual person". She avoids junk foods and prefers to cook for herself. She practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in addition to other varieties of martial arts.Jovovich also enjoys playing the guitar, writing in a diary, and writing poems and lyrics for songs.

 

Jovovich has established a charitable foundation to help Ukrainian children in 2005. At the time she referred to herself: "I am a strong Ukrainian girl, that is why I work a lot".

 

Jovovich has stated that her native language is Russian, and that she never learned to speak Serbian well. In addition to Russian and English, she also speaks some French.

Filmography
Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1988	Two Moon Junction	Samantha Delongpre
1991	Return to the Blue Lagoon	Lilli Hargrave
1992	Kuffs	Maya Carlton
1992	Chaplin	Mildred Harris
1993	Dazed and Confused	Michelle Burroughs
1997	Fifth Element, TheThe Fifth Element	Leeloo	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated — MTV Movie Award for Best Fight Scene (Leeloo vs. the aliens)
1998	He Got Game	Dakota Burns
1999	Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, TheThe Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc	Joan of Arc
2000	Claim, TheThe Claim	Lucia
2001	Million Dollar Hotel, TheThe Million Dollar Hotel	Eloise
2001	Zoolander	Katinka Ingabogovinanana
2002	Resident Evil	Alice	Nominated — Saturn Award for Best Actress
2002	You Stupid Man	Nadine
2003	Dummy	Fangora "Fanny" Gurkel
2003	No Good Deed	Erin
2004	Resident Evil: Apocalypse	Alice
2005	Gore Vidal's Caligula	Drusilla	Trailer / Short film
2006	Ultraviolet	Violet Song jat Shariff
2007	.45	Kat
2007	Resident Evil: Extinction	Alice	Scream Award for Best Science Fiction Actress
2008	Palermo Shooting	Herself
2009	Perfect Getaway, AA Perfect Getaway	Cydney Anderson
2009	Fourth Kind, TheThe Fourth Kind	Dr. Abigail "Abbey" Tyler	Nominated — Scream Award for Best Horror Actress
2010	Stone	Lucetta	Hollywood Spotlight Award for Best Actress
2010	Resident Evil: Afterlife	Alice	Scream Award for Best Science Fiction Actress
2010	Dirty Girl	Sue-Ann
2011	Vykrutasy (Frills)	Nadya	Russian film
2011	Bringing Up Bobby	Olive
2011	Three Musketeers, TheThe Three Musketeers	Milady de Winter
2011	Faces in the Crowd	Anna Marchant
2012	Resident Evil: Retribution	Alice