Born: December 17, 1975
MOVIES DATA
Two Moon Junction (1988)
Return to the Blue Lagon (1991)
Kuffs (1992)
Chaplin (1992)
Dazed and Confused (1993)
The Fifth Element (1997)
He Got Game (1998)
The Boathouse (1999)
The Messenger: Joan of Arc (1999)
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Kingdom Come (2000)
Cover girl turned pop star turned movie star Milla Jovovich has covered a lot of ground in her career, and along the way she has established herself as one of the premiere beauties of her generation. While the actress herself admits that her early acting career left a lot to be desired, she has since undertaken the task of carrying a film all her own. With several new high profile projects in the works that look to expand her range, Jovovich is on the brink of becoming a notable name and face on the silver screen.
Jovovich was born in Kiev to a successful Russian actress and a Yugoslav physician. Her parents emigrated to the United States when Milla was only five and found that their success in Russia did not exactly translate here in America. The resulting stress broke up the marriage, and in order to keep going, Jovovich's mother soon pressed her daughter into a modeling career. She took lesson in various forms of performing arts and eventually won a modeling contract at the age of 11. Jovovich was soon featured in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women" ad campaign, and before long, a new supermodel was born.
However, Jovovich was not content to be just a model, and turned her attentions to acting. Her first major role followed that of another famous model-turned acting, Brooke Shields, in Return to the Blue Lagoon. The film was quickly forgotten, as was her next (the Christian Slater vehicle Kuffs), and save her appearances in Richard Linklater's Gen-X favorite Dazed and Confused and Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (as one of Charlie's wives), Jovovich's film career was off to a very poor start. It soon became apparent that for all her undeniable sex appeal, she just did not possess the acting experience necessary to jump start a career. Then, in an act of rebellion, Jovovich married her co-star from Dazed and Confused, Shawn Andrews -- a marriage which Milla's mother quickly had annulled.
In a final act of defiance, Jovovich quit acting and turned her ambitions elsewhere, this time to music. Her fame as a supermodel made it easy for her to get a recording contract, and in 1994 she released her first album, The Divine Comedy, a nouveau-folk album that she wrote herself. Though not commercially successful, the album earned Jovovich respectful reviews, and music became another talent she could add to her resume.
Jovovich returned to acting in 1997 in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element. This sci-fi thriller cast Jovovich as a bioengineered alien who shows Bruce Willis a little bit about love. The film was a lesson in love for Jovovich in real life as she eventually married director Besson, who would cast her as the lead in his next film, The Messenger: Joan of Arc. The epic tale of the famed French heroine was lavishly produced and was filled with A-list talent (like Faye Dunaway and Dustin Hoffman) but failed to catch on with either critics or audiences. And several months before the film opened, Jovovich and Besson separated after just over two years together.
With two very different films on her plate for the coming year, Jovovich is clearly aiming to be taken seriously as an actress. Both films pair her with top directors and impressive acting talent, and they show that Jovovich has made good on many of the ambitions her mother first laid out for her when she pushed Milla into modeling over a decade ago. In addition to her revived film career, word is that she is also working on a second album with her band Plastic Has Memory. Looking ahead to upcoming projects that highlight her range as an actress as well as her ability to be a star, Milla Jovovich is set for a very promising future in Hollywood.
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Next up for Milla Jovovich -- Jovovich stars with Mel Gibson and Jeremy Davies in Wim Wenders' The Million Dollar Hotel, in which she plays a reclusive punk kid living in a run-down Los Angeles hotel. Later this year, she stars with Wes Bentley, Sarah Polley, and Natassia Kinski in Michael Winterbottom's Kingdom Come. Based on Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge, this film is an epic western set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush in 1849.
