Milla Jovovich aka Alice from “Resident Evil” movies series is having a birthday today. Happy birthday, Milla!
LIFE AND CAREER
Milla Jovovich was born on December 17, 1975, in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, former Soviet Union, the daughter of Bogić Jovović, a Serbian pediatrician, and Galina Jovovich, a Russian stage actress. She was raised in the Russian Orthodox religion. 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.
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. In 1988, she made her first professional model contract. 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.
Jovovich’s mother had “raised [her] to be a movie star” and in 1985, enrolled Jovovich in the Professional Actors school in California. In 1988, she appeared in her first professional role in the made-for-television film “The Night Train to Kathmandu” as Lily McLeod. Following roles on the television series “Paradise” (1988), “Married… with Children” (1989) and “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” (1990), Jovovich was cast as the lead as Lilli Hargrave in “Return to the Blue Lagoon” (1991). In 1992, Milla Jovovich co-starred with Christian Slater in the comedy “Kuffs”. Later that year, she portrayed Mildred Harris in the Charlie Chaplin biographical film “Chaplin”. Discouraged, she took a hiatus from acting roles, during which time she moved to Europe and began focusing on a 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 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 toured the United States during most of 1994 to promote the 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. Jovovich continues to write songs which she refers to as “demos”, and which are provided for free in MP3 format on her official website. This year, 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.
Milla Jovovich returned to acting in 1997 with a lead in the Luc Besson-directed science fiction action film “The Fifth Element”, alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. She portrayed Leeloo, an alien who was the “supreme being”. Jovovich said she “worked like hell: no band practice, no clubs, no pot, nothing” to acquire the role and impress Besson, whom she married on December 14, 1997, but later divorced. She wore a costume that came to be known as the “ACE-bandage” costume, a revealing body suit made of medical bandages designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier.
In 1998, Jovovich had a role in the Spike Lee drama “He Got Game” as abused prostitute Dakota Burns, appearing with Denzel Washington and Ray Allen. In 1999, she appeared in the music video for the song “If You Can’t Say No” by Lenny Kravitz. In 1999, Jovovich returned to the action genre playing the title role in “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc”, reuniting her with director Luc Besson. She was featured in armor throughout several extensive battle scenes, and cut her hair to a short length for the role.
In 2002, Jovovich starred in the horror/action film “Resident Evil”, released in the United States on March 15, 2002 and based on the CAPCOM video game series of the same name. She portrayed Alice, the film’s heroine, who fights a legion of zombies created by the evil Umbrella Corporation. Jovovich had accepted the role of Alice because she and her brother had been fans of the video game franchise, saying, “It was exciting for me just watching him play, I could sit for 5 hours and we would sit all day and play this game.” Jovovich had performed all the stunts required in the film, except for a scene that would involve her jumping to a cement platform, which her management deemed too dangerous, and had trained in karate, kickboxing, and combat-training. In 2004, Jovovich reprised the role of Alice in the sequel to Resident Evil, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse”. The role required her to do fight training for three hours a day, in addition to the three months prior to filming in which she had “gun training, martial arts, everything”.
Later, Milla stars as Violet, a vampire in Kurt Wimmer’s “Ultraviolet” (2006). She plays a vampire in a civil war in the late 21st century between humans and a subculture turned into vampires. Violet is forced into protecting a young boy amidst the tumult of war. The movie is a crap, but Milla never loses her beauty.
In 2007, Jovovich reprised her role as Alice in “Resident Evil: Extinction”, the third of the Resident Evil series. Milla returned as Alice in the fourth movie of the Resident Evil series, “Afterlife”, which was directed by her husband, Paul W. S. Anderson.
Milla 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, Milla Jovovich gave birth to her and Anderson’s first child, a daughter, Ever Gabo Anderson.
She returned to her role as Alice in the fifth installment of Resident Evil for “Resident Evil: Retribution”, which was released on September 14, 2012.
Source: Wikipedia. Photos by Google and Milla Jovovich Official Website.
MODELLING AND GALLERY:
All That I Love 