Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Life in the fast lane

Milla Jovovich has spent her life flying from city to city as a model, singer and actress. It’s no wonder her feet have scarcely touched the ground

Text Lynley Dwight Images Eyevine, Corbis

Ever get the feeling life is going a little too fast? That you need to slow down before you miss it? Well, spare a thought for Milla Jovovich, who must have been slamming the pause button at the age of 19, when she’d already been told that she was ‘passé’ as a model, sidelined her acting career to bring out an album and had a marriage annulled. Such was the fast-paced life of the girl who’d grow up to be an action heroine in films such as her latest, Resident Evil: Extinction, released across Europe this month.

That’s on top of moving countries at an early age. Jovovich was born in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the USSR. When she was five, her family moved to London and then the US. “We came to America in 1981 and my parents were working as housekeepers for [director] Brian De Palma,” she says. “We came with five grand and a beat up old Chevy my mum would drive with no air conditioning. We lived in San Diego and were driving to LA for auditions – two hours there. I’d be doing my homework in the car.”

Jovovich’s parents, a Russian stage actress and a Serbian paediatrician, set their sights on Hollywood to play out their American dream. “As an actress, my mum devoted herself to teaching me what she knew, so we could move forward somewhere,” Jovovich says. “There was a rule in the house that everybody worked during the week. Daddy works, mummy works, you work. On the weekends we have fun, but Monday through Friday you work.”

The family’s strong work ethic soon paid off, but it wasn’t without its struggles. “I remember not being able to speak English,” Jovovich says. “I remember being five and meeting girls – they were probably 10 or 11 and I thought they were so grown up.

I’d bring them colouring books in Russian, trying to communicate without words, but they didn’t want to play with that stuff. They thought it would be fun to torture me, so they started chasing me around and making fun of me.

I remember running.”

As she recalls her childhood in a new land, Jovovich’s fiery spirit rises to the surface and her blue-green eyes widen. “My uncle Alex had one of those old trailers on his property in Sacramento, where we first moved, and I remember running to this trailer when the other kids were mean,” she says. “I went to my little secret hiding spot and the girls followed me into the trailer.

“As soon as they cornered me, my inner Alice came out,” she adds, referring to the kickboxing, martial arts-loving character in Resident Evil she’s now playing for a third time. “Even back then, as soon as I felt trapped in this trailer, I just remember screaming at them in Russian to get out. I was just going crazy. I knew the rule, even as a kid, that if you act crazy the bigger ones will go.”

Jovovich started acting classes at the age of nine and modelling at 11.

She made her name with a role in 1991’s Return to the Blue Lagoon, followed in 1992 by Kuffs and Chaplin. But she soon found she had to put up another fight for survival.

“I remember, aged 16, going to London to record music, saying: ‘I don’t want to act, I don’t want to model, I just want to make music.’ But by the time I was 18 I was out of money, so I went to New York to model. My agent didn’t call me back because they said I was passé, that I was an 80s model. I was destroyed. I was 18, feeling like an old hag, sitting crying in my room in New York, in this huge city, where everyone was successful except me. It was awful.

“If I hadn’t been an actor who’d been rejected a million times before then it probably would have destroyed me. But rather than be destroyed, I decided: ‘Okay, move on. What next?’”

Jovovich flew back across the Atlantic to London, which in 1994 was seeing the beginnings of the Britpop explosion. She released an acclaimed folk album, The Divine Comedy, and lived a somewhat bohemian lifestyle in the English capital before deciding to give acting another try.

In 1997, while filming The Fifth Element, she fell in love with French director Luc Besson. The couple were married and Jovovich went on to play a feisty Joan of Arc in his next film. However, the marriage didn’t last and Jovovich filed for divorce in 1999. This was Jovovich’s second marriage. In 1992 she eloped to Las Vegas with her Dazed and Confused co-star Shawn Andrews. A few weeks later, her mother had the marriage annulled because she was only 16.

Jovovich’s role in The Fifth Element as the ‘perfect being’, Leeloo, scantily clad in Gaultier, launched her into the sci-fi action world. This led her to the role of zombie-fighting Alice in the first Resident Evil film. It also led her to that film’s writer and director, Paul WS Anderson, the Englishman to whom she is now engaged. The couple are expecting their first child this October.

Jovovich is pleased that she’s been able to find financial independence before finding real love. “I would hate to turn 35 and go: ‘I have no modelling career any more, I’m losing money, I have to find a man,’ which is the typical sort of Russian woman’s perspective of things,” she says. “I’m independent, and when I get married and have children I want to know it’s for no other reason than I’ve met the man of my dreams.”

It’s one in the eye for certain people in the fashion industry that, 13 years on from being told she was ‘passé’, much of Jovovich’s income comes from her modelling. Not so long ago, Sharon Stone singled her out as one of the world’s most beautiful women. She’s been a spokesmodel for L’Oréal since 1998 and fronts campaigns for MANGO and Etro. She has also launched her own fashion label, Jovovich-Hawk, with friend Carmen Hawk.

Jovovich has definitely not rested on her laurels. She says she believed from an early age that neither her looks nor her success could be taken for granted. “My mum raised me in a way that was very down-to-earth about what to expect from my looks,” she says. “She always said pretty eyes are a dime a dozen, so don’t ever think that just because you’re pretty that means anything. You’re just a product of your mum and dad. Unless you work hard, read and educate yourself, you are nothing. In Russia, we don’t mince words too much.”

FR>> La vie à toute vitesse

Milla Jovovich est née à Kiev, Ukraine, mais lorsqu’elle avait cinq ans, sa famille a déménagé à Londres et ensuite aux USA. Ses parents ont décidé de s’installer à Hollywood. “En tant qu’actrice, ma mère s’est vraiment investie dans mon éducation en me transmettant son expérience, de telle sorte que nous puissions avancer dans la vie,” déclare Jovovich. Elle a commencé des cours d’interprétation à l’âge de 9 ans et de mannequin à 11. En 1991, elle s’est fait un nom, pour son rôle dans Retour au Lagon Bleu.

Très vite, elle se sentait prête pour une nouvelle aventure, mais cela ne fut pas chose facile: “A 16 ans, j’ai débarqué à Londres pour enregistrer un disque. Mais à 18 ans, j’avais épuisé mon argent, je suis donc partie à New York pour devenir modèle. Mon agent ne m’a pas rappelée, parce qu’ils ont dit que j’étais démodée. Je pleurais, assise dans ma chambre à New York.”

Jovovich prend son vol de retour pour Londres, et là lance un album de folk avant de décider de tenter une nouvelle fois le cinéma. Son rôle en 1997 dans Le Cinquième Elément l’a propulsée audevant de la scène, comme star de film d’action. C’est ce qui l’a conduite au rôle d’Alice, combattante de zombies dans Resident Evil, dont le troisième chapitre de la saga sort ce mois-ci. Elle a également une relation avec le réalisateur Paul W.S. Anderson, dont elle attend un enfant. “Je ne suis pas une femme russe traditionnelle,” explique-t-elle, “je suis indépendante, et j’ai la conviction d’avoir rencontré l’homme de mes rêves.”

Le succès pour le futur paraît assuré: elle est le modèle de référence de L’Oréal depuis 1998 et à la une des campagnes de Mango et Etro. Elle a également lancé sa propre marque de mode, Jovovich-Hawk, avec son amie Carmen Hawk.

NL>> Leven tegen de sterren op

Milla Jovovich werd geboren in Kiev, in Oekraïne. Op haar 5de emigreerde ze met haar familie naar Londen en later naar de VS. Haar ouders droomden van Hollywood. “Als actrice leerde mijn moeder me alles, met het oog op de toekomst”, aldus Jovovich. Ze volgde acteerlessen vanaf haar 9de en begon als model op haar 11de. Ze liet zich voor het eerst opmerken in de film Return to the Blue Lagoon uit 1991.

Al snel wilde ze iets anders, maar dat viel niet zo mee: “Toen ik 16 was, trok ik naar Londen. Ik wilde muziek maken. Na twee jaar echter zat ik aan de grond en ging ik naar New York voor modellenwerk. Maar volgens mijn agent was mijn look passé. Ik heb in New York vooral zitten huilen op mijn kamer.”

Jovovich vloog terug naar Londen en bracht een folkalbum uit, alvorens het acteren een tweede kans te geven. The Fifth Element uit 1997 maakte van haar een actiester en leidde naar haar rol als zombiedoder Alice in Resident Evil. Deze maand komt het derde luik uit. Ze is ook verloofd met de regisseur, Paul W.S. Anderson, van wie ze een kind verwacht. “Ik ben geen typisch Russische”, verklaart ze. “Ik ben onafhankelijk en ik weet dat ik de man van mijn dromen heb ontmoet.”

Haar succes lijkt verzekerd: al sinds 1998 is ze model voor L’Oréal en ze doet reclamewerk voor Mango en Etro. Bovendien lanceerde ze met vriendin Carmen Hawk haar eigen modemerk, Jovovich-Hawk.

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