Biography of Milla Jovovich

Milla Natasha Jovovich was born in Kiev, Ukraine, on December 17, 1975, the daughter of Russian stage actress Gallina Loginova and Yugoslavian pediatrician Bogie Jovovich.

Milla Jovovich was five years old when her family emigrated to Sacramento. Growing up in the US, she says, "I could have died and gone to heaven in Toys 'R' US – and I discovered French fries." Milla Jovovich enjoyed childhood pleasures like toys and junk food.

Already a startling beauty at age 11, Milla Jovovich began pursuing an acting career, but when her photograph reached the offices of the Prima modeling agency, a somewhat different career path began. She became the world's youngest cover model, and was named one of Revlon's Most Unforgettable Women in the World before her 12th birthday. Earning $3,500 a day, she appeared on thirteen magazine covers as a pre-teen.

Her first cover was for the Italian fashion magazine Lei. A six-page fashion spread by Herb Ritts for a French fashion magazine quickly moved Milla Jovovich , the young and barely-trained model, to the top ranks. In her first year alone, she completed 15 fashion covers and countless other shoots. She's also been in Calvin Klein, Escape, and dozens of other high profile ads, as well as in all the major glamour magazines.

Having gained international fame, Milla Jovovich decided to focus upon her original goal. She made her screen debut in 1988's Two Moon Junction as the younger sister of Sherilyn Fenn, and also starred in a Disney Channel fantasy feature, Night Train to Kathmandu.

She displayed maturity and talent beyond her years, and continued her acting career with the release of Return to Blue Lagoon in 1991, and Kuffs and Chaplin in 1992. A brief role in Richard Linklater's high school comedy Dazed and Confused followed. Though her screen-time was brief, the role was her singing debut, as the character gave an a capella rendition of a few lines from Milla Jovovich own composition The Alien Song.

Milla Jovovich released her first album at the age of 18, entitled The Divine Comedy which was well-received. Milla Jovovich pursued a strenuous tour schedule through the remainder of 1994 and the start of 1995. She was preparing to enter the studio to begin work on her second album when the opportunity to star in The Fifth Element, arose. It was a sci-fi movie starring Bruce Willis that takes place in the future. In this role, Milla Jovovich was appropriately cast as the perfect being known as Leeloo. Jovovich's modeling experience came in handy because the character was genetically engineered, and required Milla Jovovich to use as little facial expression as possible. It was disclosed after the film's banner opening weekend that she and director Besson had carried on a torrid affair during filming.

In the spring of '98, she starred in a Spike Lee Joint with Denzel Washington, entitled He Got Game. Milla Jovovich went on to win the leading role in another Luc Besson film, where she played the role of Joan Of Arc. Soon after the production was complete, she married Besson.

Milla Jovovich sums up her artistic ambitions as follows: "I just want to make one really good movie a year. And when I die, to know I was honest as an artist.

In 1999, Milla starred in the horror film The Boat House as a teenager who has seen some evil creature and loses her mind, and is sent to a mental hospital from which she later escapes. Next on her list was The Claim, 2000, Zoolander, 2001. In year 2002, she starred in Dummy, Resident Evil, You Stupid Man.

In the same year Milla Jovovich filed for divorce. Milla Jovovich was voted the Sexeist Female Movie Star in the Australian Empire Magazine September 2002.

Filmography of Milla Jovovich

All movies with Milla Jovovich

• Ultraviolet (2004) Milla Jovovich plays Violet
• Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) Milla Jovovich plays Alice
• You Stupid Man (2002) Milla Jovovich plays Nadine
  ... aka You Stupid Man (2002) (Germany)
• House on Turk Street, The (2002) Milla Jovovich plays Erin
  ... aka No Good Deed (2003) (USA: new title)
• Resident Evil (2002) Milla Jovovich plays Alice
  ... aka Resident Evil (2002) (France) (Germany)
• Dummy (2002) Milla Jovovich plays Fangora
• Zoolander (2001) Milla Jovovich plays Katinka Ingabogovinanana
  ... aka Zoolander (2001) (Germany)
• Claim, The (2000) Milla Jovovich plays Lucia
  ... aka Maître de Kingdom Come, Le (2000) (Canada: French title)
  ... aka Rédemption (2001/I) (France)
• Million Dollar Hotel, The (2000) Milla Jovovich plays Eloise
• Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, The (1999) Milla Jovovich plays Joan of Arc
  ... aka Joan of Arc (2000) (Australia) (UK) ... aka Jeanne d'Arc (1999/I) (France)
• Fifth Element, The (1998) (VG) Milla Jovovich plays Leeloo
  ... aka Cinquième élément, Le (1998) (VG) (France)
• He Got Game (1998) Milla Jovovich plays Dakota Burns
• Fifth Element, The (1997) Milla Jovovich plays Leeloo
  ... aka Cinquième élément, Le (1997) (France)
• Dazed and Confused (1993) Milla Jovovich plays Michelle Burroughs
• Chaplin (1992) Milla Jovovich plays Mildred Harris
  ... aka Charlot (1992) (Italy)
• Kuffs (1992) Milla Jovovich plays Maya Carlton
• Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991) Milla Jovovich plays Lilli
• Two Moon Junction (1988) (as Milla) Milla Jovovich plays Samantha Delongpre

Photo gallery of Milla Jovovich

News, Gossip and Trivia Milla Jovovich

Milla Jovovich has revealed that her tough childhood saved her from getting hooked on to drugs.

The 'Resident Evil: Apocalypse star', who began her modelling career at 11, said that her parents were very strict, which helped inculcate a sense of discipline in her."We came to the US from the Ukraine in 1981. At first my parents worked helping director Brian De Palma around the house. Any left over money was invested in my education - dancing lessons, acting lessons, music lessons," Spiegel magazine quoted Milla Jovovich as saying."At first my parents worked helping director Brian De Palma around the house. Any left over money was invested in my education - dancing lessons, acting lessons, music lessons.My parents demanded strict discipline from me, which as a child, I often found depressing.

But as a teenager, it saved my life. Without this discipline, I would have ended up in rehab like many of my friends did," she added.

Interview with Milla Jovovich

Milla Jovovich is a bit fidgety today, and she can't fathom out why. Milla Jovovich thinks that it's probably a combination of too much nicotine, too much talking, and not enough food.

As Milla Jovovich marches into the ritzy suite of the Loews Beach Hotel in Santa Monica, Milla Jovovich resembles a buzzing bee contemplating a place to land. Clad in a torn, stylised navy T-shirt that Oxfam would reject, and a pair of worn denims, Milla Jovovich is in the midst of a promotional tour for Resident Evil: Apocalypse, the sequel to the horror film "Resident Evil", which, globally, scored over $100m at the box office.

The supermodel-turned-musician-turned-actress, with an enviable body and symmetrical features so perfect Milla Jovovich looks as if she could have been created in a laboratory, has packed a lot of living into her 29 years. Milla Jovovich started modelling at the age of nine and was an international cover girl by the age of 11; retired from the catwalk at the ripe old age of 15 to pursue a rock'n'roll career; tied the knot in Vegas at 16 (annulled two months later); got a multimillion-dollar contract as the face of L'Oréal; and married for the second time to a French director old enough to be her father, which, surprise, surprise, ended in divorce. All the while, she was proving her acting talents on the big screen.

"You don't mind if I smoke, do you? If you're allergic, I don't have to," Milla Jovovich enquires, almost apologetically, in her raspy, world-weary voice.

Her tall and seductive frame is both graceful and powerful, a sinewy bundle of nervous energy offset by a seductive inner calm. Her eyes, a piercing blue, scan the room for any object resembling an ashtray. I push a glass half-full of water her way, hoping that it might solve her dilemma. It doesn't. Flopping on to the sofa, Jovovich says: "I hate putting it in water - it reminds me of what my lungs look like."

Shaking her head, Milla Jovovich natters away. "You know, I've cut down a lot. Every year, I cut down, because I'm getting older. But I've met way too many women who've kept their beauty and raw animal sexuality, and they still smoke. So, unfortunately, they're not a good influence on me!"

Milla Jovovich shows no signs of packing it in now, as Milla Jovovich chain smokes throughout the interview, occasionally using her free hand to shoo away the clouds that have a habit of settling just above my anti-smoking head.

Ask any model whether she considers herself beautiful, and she'll quickly point out her flaws. But pose this question to Milla Jovovich, and she'll provide you with a 300-word explanation of why she doesn't take her looks for granted, and how it's all about the goddess within. "My mum raised me in a way that was very down to earth about what to expect from my looks," she says. "She always told me that pretty eyes are a dime a dozen, so don't ever think that just because you're pretty, it means anything. So I grew up very aware of that.

"To be proud is ridiculous to me. My mum would always say: 'We made you who you are, and the only thing you can do now is work hard, because no one can take that away; but your beauty, God will take away no matter what.' So I've always known that this is temporary, and I'm fine with it."

Cocking her head to one side, Milla Jovovich stubs out her cigarette. "I laugh when I see teenage girls who suddenly realise that their looks have an effect on people. I'm like: 'No, honey, you're just a product of your mum and dad, but you are nothing and you're an idiot if you think otherwise. Unless you work, read and educate yourself, you are nothing. In Russia, we don't mince words too much."

Born in 1975 in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, Milla Jovovich doesn't recall much of her homeland except vague images of playing in the park. Her only dim memories before her family defected to the West are of watching her mother, the former Soviet actress Galina Loginova on set. At the time, her Serbian father, Bogich Jovovich, was training as a doctor in London, and when Milla was just five, Galina was granted permission to visit her husband and seized the chance to leave the USSR.

It wasn't long before the family relocated to California for a better life. "It was an emotionally trying time for my parents," Milla Jovovich sighs. "When you're an immigrant coming to a new country, it's always difficult, unless you come with money, but we didn't have any. So it was like being at the bottom of the barrel and starting over."

Milla Jovovich mother's days as a respected actress in her native country were replaced with cleaning houses, in a bid to provide her daughter with the opportunities she had never had. It was only a matter of time before her parents' marriage collapsed under the strain of their new life.

"My mum always wanted the best for me," Milla Jovovich says. "Every last dollar was spent on ballet lessons, acting classes, learning the piano, anything you could imagine. So I felt a lot of pressure to create something to help my family."

It is widely assumed that her mother lived vicariously through her daughter, and by the age of 11, Milla Jovovich's Lolita looks won her a contract with a reputable modelling agency. Acting lessons soon followed.

Reaching across the table for another cigarette, Milla Jovovich recalls the bad days when she was called a Commie in school, and Milla Jovovich couldn't speak a word of English. "I remember being about five and bringing my colouring books to show these American girls, who were probably about 11," she says. "I thought they were so grown up. But they refused to play with me. They thought I was weird and that it would be more fun to torture me, so they started chasing me."

By the time she was 12, Milla Jovovich's drama lessons had paid off and she made her film debut on the Disney Channel's "The Night Train to Kathmandu". Later that year, Milla Jovovich got her first major movie lead in "Return to the Blue Lagoon", (the sequel to the Brooke Shields hit). Supporting roles soon followed, in Two Moon Junction, opposite Sherilyn Fenn, and in Chaplin, with Robert Downey Jr. At 15, singing became her passion, which led to a deal with EMI and the release of her first album, "The Divine Comedy", to critical acclaim.

Just a year later, Milla Jovovich was bored with her all-work-and-no-play lifestyle, and started to dabble in drugs, shoplifting and credit-card fraud. "I did that stupid shit when I was 15," Milla Jovovich sighs. "I went to parties and took drugs, I hung out. I was young and lived in Hollywood, and that's what you did to be cool, and I wanted to be accepted. Then I realised it was all fake.

"When the lights came back on, everybody looked like shit. It was scary, with people twitching and doing stupid things with their bodies. I didn't want that in my life." Not only can you hear her humility, but you can see the honesty in her eyes.

Milla Jovovich's life took a turn for the better when Milla Jovovich was cast in Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused", during which she fell in love with her co-star Shawn Andrews and eloped to Las Vegas. Her mother, who, at the time, appeared to completely run Milla's life, had the marriage annulled two months later.

Life changed dramatically again when she met and married the director Luc Besson, 17 years her senior. He cast her as the leading alien in the 1997 sci-fi hit "The Fifth Element", opposite Bruce Willis. Less than two years later, the couple announced their separation.

Today, Milla Jovovich says, they're best of friends and have mutual respect and love. In 1999, they launched their dream project, "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc", with Milla Jovovich in the role once portrayed by the screen icons Ingrid Bergman and Jean Seberg. Other screen credits include "The Million Dollar Hotel", penned by U2's Bono; Michael Winterbottom's "The Claim"; and "Resident Evil", based on the popular video game, in which Milla Jovovich was directed by her then boyfriend, Paul W S Anderson.

Milla Jovovich has a secret wish: Milla Jovovich has always wanted bigger breasts. Milla Jovovich insists that her bosoms have always been enhanced with plenty of padding and sticky tape on film. "I've just finished playing this super-hot comic-book character called Ultraviolet, and I got to build up my chest," Milla Jovovich announces, not caring who's listening. "But I'd never consider doing it for real. I'm too much of a scaredy cat. And I've heard too many horror stories, and guys claim they can spot fake tits a mile away. But if I had a baby and my boobs dropped, then I'd be, like, 'Why not get a lift?'."

In "Resident Evil: Apocalypse", Milla Jovovich resurrects her role as Alice, a survivor who awakens from a nightmare to find her worst fears realised - the bloodthirsty undead are threatening to ambush the city. Genetically perfected by a team of scientists to be the ultimate fighting machine, Alice joins forces with the police and citizens to try to escape the quarantined and soon-to-be-nuked metropolis.

Science-fiction fans won't be disappointed by the second-rate feel of the movie, directed by Alexander Witt, and written by Paul W S Anderson, who himself was genetically perfected by a team of scientists to create bad movies that make tons of money. Anderson outdoes himself here, crafting a script that's not only jam-packed with violence, gore and nudity, but has a scene featuring zombie hookers.

Needless to say, Milla Jovovich shines and carries the film, despite the storyline. Which begs the question - what attracts a lovely girl like Milla Jovovich to bloody up her face in these sinister roles? Milla Jovovich shrugs. "I can be dark. I can be very depressed like everybody else. You can't enjoy your happiness, if you don't experience depression. But I've always been on a quest for something. I can get very metaphysical and hypothetical at times. Like, I can sit for hours all night and talk about ideas and what if the world ends tomorrow. I definitely need an outlet for that.

"But also, nobody's going to put me in a romantic comedy right now. So, it's not that I look for these parts, they seem to find me. I think it's more that people see me as dark, than my affinity to the darkness!"

And with that, Milla Jovovich grabs her packet of cigarettes and waltzes out the door.

SEAN LENNON has apparently traded Elizabeth Jagger in for Milla Jovovich. The musician son of Beatle John LENNON was spotted getting chatty with the actress and model at P. Diddy's birthday party last week before Naomi Campbell caught them snogging later on. "Is this what's going on now?" exclaimed Naomi Campbell, according to New York's Daily News. "I love this!" SEAN LENNON, who previously dated Bijou Philips, was said to be "head over heels" in love with Elizabeth Jagge earlier this year, while Milla Jovovich recently complained that her busy career had forced her to postpone any plans to marry her long-term boyfriend, director Paul Anderson