Milla Jovovich

At 48 years old, Milla Jovovich has this physical status:

Jovovich's mother had "raised her to be a movie star." In 1985, Galina Loginova enrolled Jovovich at the age of 10 in acting classes, and when her acting jobs picked up, she started attending school for young actors rather than regular school. In 1988, Jovovich appeared in her debut professional film role as Samantha Delongpre in the romantic thriller Two Moon Junction. Later that year, she appeared in the made-for-television film as Lily McLeod in The Night Train to Kathmandu. She had several roles in television series, including Paradise (1988), Married... with Children (1989), and Parker Lewis Can't Lose (1990).

At age 15, she was cast as the lead in Return to the Blue Lagoon (1991), opposite Brian Krause. Given her age and beauty, she was often compared to Brooke Shields, another child model-turned-actress, who had starred in The Blue Lagoon (1980). The role was controversial as, like Shields, Jovovich appeared nude in the film. Jovovich was nominated for "Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" at the 1991 Young Artist Awards, and "Worst New Star" at the 1991 Golden Raspberry Awards. In 1992, Jovovich co-starred with Christian Slater in the comedy Kuffs. Later that year, she portrayed Mildred Harris in the Charlie Chaplin biographical film Chaplin. In 1993, she acted in Richard Linklater's film Dazed and Confused. She played Michelle Burroughs, the on-screen girlfriend to Pickford (played by her then-boyfriend Shawn Andrews). Strongly featured in promotions for the film, Jovovich was upset to find her role much reduced in the released film. Discouraged, she took a hiatus from acting roles, moving to Europe.

Jovovich returned to acting in 1997 with a lead role in the French science-fiction action film The Fifth Element, alongside Bruce Willis and Gary Oldman. This was written and directed by Luc Besson. She portrayed Leeloo, an alien who helps to save the planet. Jovovich said she "worked like hell: no band practice, no clubs, no pot, nothing" to acquire the role and impress Besson. Jovovich co-created and mastered an alien fictional language of over 400 words for her role. She wore a costume that came to be known as the "ACE-bandage" costume; the body suit designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier was made of medical bandages. The Fifth Element was selected as the opening film for the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and its worldwide box office gross was over $263 million, more than three times its budget of $80 million. The Fifth Element was often praised for its visual style; critic James Berardinelli wrote, "Jovovich makes an impression, although her effectiveness has little to do with acting and less to do with dialogue". Jovovich was nominated for "Favorite Female Newcomer" at the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards and "Best Fight" at the MTV Movie Awards. The film inspired a video game and a planned Leeloo action figure, but the figure was never released due to licensing problems. In a 2003 interview, Jovovich said Leeloo was her favorite role.

In 1998, Jovovich appeared in Spike Lee's drama He Got Game, as abused prostitute Dakota Burns; she acted 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. That year she returned to the action genre playing the title role in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, under direction of Luc Besson. She cut her hair short and wore armour in several extensive battle scenes. Jovovich received generally good reviews for her performance. The historical drama did moderately well at the box office, gaining $66 million worldwide. In 2000, Jovovich appeared as the troubled Eloise in The Million Dollar Hotel, a film based on a concept story by Bono of the band U2 and Nicholas Klein. Directed by Wim Wenders, Jovovich starred alongside Jeremy Davies and Mel Gibson; she provided vocals on the film's soundtrack. That year she also played bar owner Lucia, in the British western film The Claim (2000). This was followed by a supporting role as the evil Katinka in the comedy Zoolander (2001).

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 Umbrella Corporation. Jovovich had accepted the role because she and her brother Marco had been fans of the video game franchise. 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. The film was commercially successful, grossing US$17 million on its opening weekend; it eventually made US$40 million domestically and $102 million worldwide. Later, she portrayed the manipulative gang wife Erin in No Good Deed (2002), Nadine in the romantic comedy You Stupid Man (2002), punk rocker Fangora ("Fanny") in Dummy (2003), and provided a guest voice on the television series King of the Hill. The role of Fangora in Dummy allowed Jovovich to act in film with Oscar-winning Adrien Brody, who was a friend prior to filming. Jovovich found it easy to identify with this role because she felt Fangora possessed similar qualities to the actress' own life.

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". Apocalypse received even more negative reactions from the critics than the first film, but it was an even greater commercial success, ranking number one at the box office unlike the first film. Following the release of the film, Jovovich was unhappy with the critical results and director Alexander Witt's effort. She noted during an interview that year that her large action films take care of the commercial part of her career, while she acts in "independent little films that never come out" to appease her artistic side, and "It's a good balance". The following year, she was featured in Gore Vidal's faux trailer remake of Caligula, as Drusilla. In 2006, Jovovich's film, the science fiction/action thriller Ultraviolet, was released on March 3. She played the title role of Violet Song jat Shariff, a role that also involved heavily choreographed fight sequences. It was not screened for critics, but when reviewed, it was critically panned and failed at the box office, grossing US$31 million worldwide. Also in 2006, Jovovich also starred in .45, as Kat, the revenge driven girlfriend of an illegal gun and drug dealer with Scottish actor and DJ Angus Macfadyen.

In 2007, Jovovich reprised her role as Alice in Resident Evil: Extinction, the third of the Resident Evil series. The film grossed an estimated $24 million on its opening weekend, topping the box-office gross for that week. In 2009, Jovovich starred in David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway with Kiele Sanchez, Timothy Olyphant, and Steve Zahn. The film is a thriller about a newlywed couple (Milla and Zahn) on their honeymoon in Hawaii. Reviews for the film were mostly positive; while The Hollywood Reporter felt that Jovovich gave a "fairly subtle performance", The Globe and Mail noted that she and "[...]Kiele Sanchez manage to bring some dramatic tension to the frightened-girlfriend moments". A Perfect Getaway garnered modest box office returns. Jovovich starred in the science-fiction thriller The Fourth Kind, as a psychologist in Alaska who uses hypnosis to uncover memories from her patients of alien abduction. While the film was largely panned by critics, it made US$47.71 million in cinemas worldwide.

In 2010, Jovovich returned as Alice in the fourth movie of the Resident Evil series, Afterlife, which was directed by her husband, Paul W. S. Anderson, and portrayed the mother of a promiscuous and troubled high school student in the independent coming-of-age dramedy Dirty Girl, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, opposite Juno Temple, William H. Macy, Mary Steenburgen, and Tim McGraw. In its review for the latter film, The Hollywood Reporter found Jovovich to be "terrific" in what it described as a "sweet [and] sassy period comedy with a Juno sensibility and the soul of a Little Miss Sunshine". Jovovich played the wife of a jailed arsonist in Stone, a psychological thriller co-starring Robert De Niro and Edward Norton. Filming began in May 2009 at the recently closed Southern Michigan Correctional Facility in Jackson, Michigan. The film was released in late 2010, to a mixed response. Nevertheless, The A.V. Club noted that Jovovich was "particularly good as a breathy femme fatale who seduces De Niro with a mere change in inflection".

Jovovich starred in Paul W. S. Anderson's romantic action adventure film The Three Musketeers, as Milady de Winter, in 2011, alongside Matthew Macfadyen, Logan Lerman, Ray Stevenson, Luke Evans, Orlando Bloom, and Christoph Waltz. After the lackluster response for Musketeers, Jovovich criticised Summit Entertainment for not "promoting [the film] properly" as a "family film" in the United States. Deadline Hollywood reported that Summit responded: "She doesn't know what she's talking about and we don't know where she's coming from." She would next headline the little-seen psychological thriller Faces in the Crowd, which was written and directed by Julien Magnat; in it, she plays the survivor of a serial killer's attack that leaves her suffering from a condition called prosopagnosia, which renders her unable to recognize faces. Sight and Sound remarked that the film suffered from "a central performance not quite strong enough to win Jovovich recognition as a dramatic actress". Also in 2011, Jovovich appeared as a Ukrainian con artist in Famke Janssen's directorial debut film Bringing Up Bobby, alongside Marcia Cross, and starred in the romantic comedy Lucky Trouble, which was her Russian-language film debut.

Jovovich returned to her role as Alice in the fifth installment of Resident Evil for Resident Evil: Retribution, which was released on September 14, 2012. She played an ambitious woman and the second wife of the leader of a motorcycle club in 2014's Cymbeline, a film version of the eponymous play by William Shakespeare, and in 2015's Survivor, she took on the role of a Diplomatic Security Service/Foreign Service officer at the US Embassy in London. Both films received a VOD release in North America, despite theatrical runs abroad. Jovovich made a cameo appearance reprising the role of villain Katinka in 2016's Zoolander 2. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016), the sixth and final film of the Resident Evil franchise, starred Jovovich as Alice as she continues her vengeance against Umbrella for the death of her allies and the catastrophe they have caused. Time Out in its review for the film noted: "While the franchise has slackened into dependably dumb post-apocalyptic thrills, star Milla Jovovich has only gotten better, seasoning her long-legged athleticism with a commanding stare". The Final Chapter was the highest-grossing film in the franchise, earning over US$312 million worldwide.

In Shock and Awe (2017), Jovovich played the wife of an investigator working on the reasons behind the Bush Administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq, starring opposite Woody Harrelson and Tommy Lee Jones. In Future World (2018), she obtained the role of a drug lord, alongside James Franco, who also directed the film. While reviewers felt Jovovich was "underused" in Shock and Awe, Future World holds a 0% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 9 reviews. Jovovich starred as the administrator of an island-bound reform school in the fantasy film Paradise Hills (2019), the directorial debut of Alice Waddington. She also played the evil Vivienne Nimue, the Blood Queen in the Hellboy reboot movie, released in 2019.

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