"I am a strong Ukrainian girl, that is why I work a lot."
Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich (born December 17, 1975 in Kyiv, Ukraine) is an American actress and musician of Russian-Serbian-Ukrainian descent.note She's best known for her Action Girl roles.
In the midst of her modeling career, Milla Jovovich (pronounced mee-luh yo-vo-vitch) made waves in Hollywood with her roles as Michelle in Dazed and Confused, Leeloo in The Fifth Element, and Violet Song in Ultraviolet. Today she is best known for playing Alice in the Resident Evil Film Series.
She tends to work a lot with her film director significant others, those being former husband Luc Besson and current husband Paul W.S. Anderson. She and Anderson have three daughters - Ever (who became an actress), Dashiel, and Osian.
She maintains her modeling and fashion designing career, and even had her own clothing line, Jovovich-Hawk, but it went under in 2008. She's also a singer, and although her last official album was released back in 1998, she continues to release demos, sing folk songs
, and contribute to movie soundtracks. However, an as-yet untitled EP is forthcoming.
Notable roles:
- Lilli Hargrave in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991)
- Mildred Harris in Chaplin (1992)
- Michelle Burroughs in Dazed and Confused (1993)
- Leeloo note in The Fifth Element (1997)
- Dakota Barns in He Got Game (1998)
- Joan of Arc in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999)
- Katinka Ingaborgovinanana in Zoolander (2001) and Zoolander 2 (2016)
- Alice in the Resident Evil Film Series
- Resident Evil (2002) (2002)
- Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)
- Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)
- Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010)
- Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
- Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)
- Nadine in You Stupid Man (2002)
- Erin in No Good Deed (2002)
- Kat in .45 (2006)
- Violet Song jat Shariff in Ultraviolet (2006) (2006)
- Dr. Abbey Tyler in The Fourth Kind (2009)
- Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers (2011)
- Kate Abbott in Survivor (2015)
- The Drug Lord in Future World (2018)
- Nimue the Blood Queen in Hellboy (2019)
- Senior Agent Bruce in The Rookies (2019)
- Capt. Natalie Artemis in Monster Hunter (2020)
Tropes associated with Milla Jovovich's roles:
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Done with a nod to the audience in The Fourth Kind. The film is presented as a dramatization of a real life incident (it isn't), and footage of the 'real' Abigail Tyler is often shown in comparison with Milla, who is shown as more improbably attractive for a small town therapist.
- Action Girl: A common role she's typecast in. Especially after her role in The Fifth Element.
- Barefoot Loon: She played an eccentric perpetually barefoot girl called Eloise in Wim Wenders' "Million Dollar Hotel". She even walked barefoot for two months in real life to get used to the role.
- Costume Backlash: She didn't like the skimpy costume she had for The Fifth Element, mostly because it meant she got lewd comments from the crew.
- Creator Backlash: She has nothing nice to say about Return to the Blue Lagoon. She also disliked Ultraviolet (2006).
- Creator Couple:
- She was Luc Besson's wife when he directed her in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.
- Paul WS Anderson has directed her in the Resident Evil Film Series.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: She voiced a 10-year-old boy in the Russian CGI film A Hero's Tail.
- Dyeing for Your Art:
- She dyed her hair blonde in the first 3 Resident Evil movies.
- For The Fifth Element, Milla's hair was to be dyed from its natural brown color to her character's signature orange color. However, due to the fact that her hair had to be re-dyed regularly to maintain the bright color, Milla's hair quickly became too damaged and broken to withstand the dye. Eventually a wig was created to match the color and style of Leeloo's hair, and was used for the remainder of the production.
- Fake American: Since she has an American accent naturally, she's often cast as them.
- Full-Frontal Assault: She gets naked a LOT in her movies. Sometimes full frontal.
- Girly Bruiser: She's traditionally feminine and very beautiful and a highly skilled martial artist who is well versed in Wushu, Karate, Taekwondo and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
- Lady in Red: Most famously as Alice but she wears red a lot and looks very good doing so.
- Large Ham: She's so hyper, it's incredible. Most definitely in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, Zoolander and The Three Musketeers (2011).
- Looping Lines: She redubbed her entire role in Resident Evil (2002) to give Alice a lower vocal register.
- Method Acting: She trained for 3 months of fighting and using guns for the Resident Evil Film Series and Ultraviolet (2006).
- Ms. Fanservice: She's often the only reason people go to see her less-than-stellar movies. She knows it, and she's a good sport about it. Once when asked why people should see Resident Evil (2002), she replied, "I'm wearing a skimpy dress and holding a machine gun". On the film's DVD commentary she's amazed her husband was able to talk about something completely unrelated while her nipple was visible.
- No Stunt Double: She does many of her own stunts, particularly in the "Resident Evil" series.
- Promoted Fangirl: She was a huge fan of Nikita and Luc Besson, so it was a big surprise for her to have been cast in The Fifth Element by none other than Besson himself. She even married him (although it only lasted two years).
- Playing Against Type:
- A Villain Protagonist in A Perfect Getaway. Also, a punk rocker in Dummy and a cartoony Russian villainess in Zoolander.
- Voicing a 10 year old boy in A Hero's Tail.
- The Fourth Kind is a movie where she plays a therapist powerless to protect people from alien abductions.
- Sensual Slav: In a few of her roles. It helps that she is from Eastern Europe.
- Statuesque Stunner: She's about 5'9 and very beautiful.
- Typecasting: Following the Resident Evil movies, she's been getting a lot of Action Girl roles, although she has played plenty of other types of characters. If she's not the action heroine, she's usually the seductress who gets naked a lot and does sex scenes. It's hard to find her in a movie where she does not take her clothes off (The Fourth Kind is a rare movie where she isn't in Action Girl or Ms. Fanservice mode).
- Unbuilt Casting Type: Before she was typecast as Action Girls, she starred in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, where she plays Jeanne as someone who's horrified by the bloodshed she takes part in, and suffers Sanity Slippage as things continue.
