Biography

Personal Life

Milla Jovovich (pronounced "mee-luh" "yo-vo-vitch") was born December 17, 1975 in Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine to father Bogdanovitch Jovovich (Serbian doctor) and mother Galina Loginova Jovovich (Russian actress). In 1981, Milla and her family left the Soviet Union and moved to London, England and then to Sacramento, California, ultimately settling in Los Angeles.

Milla married director Paul W.S. Anderson (director/writer of the Resident Evil series) on August 22, 2009. They have a daughter together, Ever Gabo J. Anderson (born 11.03.07).

Modeling

At the age of eleven, Jovovich was spotted by photographer Richard Avedon, who featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In October 1987, she was on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine Lei, her first of many covers. In 1988, she signed her first professional modeling contract.

Milla has appeared in hundreds of magazines and on dozens of covers. She has been featured in ad campaigns for several brands, including Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Damiani, Donna Karan, Gap, Versace, Mango, Etro and several others (see "Gallery" dropdown menu above). Milla has been an international spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics since 1998. In addition to L'Oréal, Milla has been in campaigns for Paris department stores, Samsonite, Derimod, Gap, and Mariella Burani recently.

Acting

Milla's early modeling led to acting roles, and in 1988 she appeared in her first film role in the romance thriller Two Moon Junction. Her first leading role was in Return to the Blue Lagoon in 1991, for which she was nominated for the "Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" in the 1991 Young Artist Awards. She appeared on some TV shows around this time and also in the films Kuffs (1992), Chaplin (1992), and Dazed and Confused (1993).

Milla's breakout role was as Leeloo, the perfect being in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997). She later starred in several other action movies, including the Resident Evil trilogy (Resident Evil (2002), Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Ultraviolet (2006), and A Perfect Getaway (2009).

Milla has also been in several comedies and dramas, including Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998), The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), The Claim (2000), The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Zoolander (2001), Dummy (2003), No Good Deed (2003), You Stupid Man (2003), a faux trailer for a non-existent remake of Caligula (2005), .45 (2006), and Palermo Shooting (2008).

Milla's upcoming movies include:

__ The Fourth Kind (2009) - a fact-based thriller involving an ongoing unsolved mystery in Alaska, where one town has seen an extraordinary number of unexplained disappearances during the past 40 years and there are accusations of a federal cover-up. Milla plays a woman investigating the disappearances in the town.
__ Keep Coming Back (2010) - Milla stars as an alcoholic former stripper in the directorial debut of veteran actor William H. Macy.
__ Stone (2010) - Milla will play the wife of a convicted arsonist (Edward Norton) who is deployed in a psychological game of cat-and-mouse with his parole officer (Robert De Niro).
__ Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) - Milla returns as Alice in Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), the fourth Resident Evil film
__ Faces in the Crowd (2010) - a psychological thriller centering on a woman (Milla) who barely survives an attack by a serial killer and wakes up in hospital with a head injury that leaves her "face-blind" (prosopagnosia). No longer able to recognize faces, she must navigate a world in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them. All the while the killer is closing in, determined to eliminate the potential witness.

Music

In 1994, Milla released her critically acclaimed folk album, The Divine Comedy. Inspired by a love of "elves and magic trees", Milla wrote the lyrics at 15 and recorded the album when she was just 16. Acoustic, folky, and hard to categorize, the eleven songs on The Divine Comedy are laced with Slavic sadness and X-istential self-doubt. "In a Glade" is a beautiful traditional Ukrainian folk song that Milla sings in her native tongue.

Milla led a band called Plastic Has Memory which played about a dozen shows in Los Angeles and New York City in 1999. Although Plastic Has Memory never released a record, they did contribute one song, "On the Hill", to Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit CD for The Wildlife Waystation.

Milla performed the song "Left and Right" at Fashion Rocks in London, England in October 2003 (MP3). She has also had songs on several albums, including 2 cover versions of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" on the The Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack (2000), "Rocket Collecting" on the Underworld soundtrack (2003), and "Shein Vi Di L'Vone" & "Mezinka" (Yiddish Klezmer songs) on the Dummy soundtrack (2003).

Milla has collaborated with Puscifer (Maynard James Keenan of Tool and A Perfect Circle) several times. She sang on "Rev 22:20" on the Underworld soundtrack (2003) and also on the Renholder remix of The Cure's "Underneath The Stars" on the Underworld: Rise of the Lycans soundtrack (2009).

Milla also sings on "The Mission" [ listen at puscifer.com ] and performed live with Puscifer at The Pearl in Las Vegas on February 13, 2009 [ video ].

Milla sang on "We Are Family" (2001) (American Red Cross benefit CD), "Former Lover" from Deepak Chopra's album, A Gift of Love II: Oceans of Ecstasy (2002), and "I Know It's You" by The Crystal Method (2004).

Milla continues to write demos. These demos are available here for free. Fans are encouraged to enjoy them and remix them, but may not sell them.

Fashion Design

Jovovich-Hawk was a fashion line founded by Milla and Carmen Hawk in 2003. Jovovich-Hawk was a finalist in 2006 for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)/Vogue Fashion Fund initiative. Milla's character Alice wore Jovovich-Hawk clothing in Resident Evil: Extinction (2007). Mango released a Jovovich-Hawk for MNG collection in 2007. CNN interviewed Milla and Carmen for a feature on Jovovich-Hawk in 2007 (video). Jovovich-Hawk ended in 2008. See Jovovich-Hawk.com for more information (video preview).

Philanthropy

Milla attended the Montblanc Signature for Good opening event for the official unveiling of her portrait along with 11 other actresses on February 20, 2009 in Los Angeles, CA. Milla posed as Esmeralda from Victor Hugo's classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame to raise funds for United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Milla's print was sold for $20,000 USD in September 2009!

Milla is an ambassador for amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) and also supports several other charities, including OCRF (Ovarian Cancer Research Fund), The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Wildlands Project, and UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Milla's PSA for the OCRF:

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Marc Jacobs/Milla Skin Cancer Awareness T-shirt Campaign (to benefit the NYU Cancer Institute; available for purchase from MarcJacobs.com):

Milla is one of the featured artists in a global campaign titled "tck tck tck: Time for Climate Justice" addressing climate change headed by Bob Geldof. The campaign features a collaborative single recording a reworded version of Midnight Oil's 1987 protest song "Beds are Burning". The single, available as a free download from iTunes is designed to both to raise awareness and act as a "giant digital petition" by those who download it.