Milla Jovovich

Born on December 17, 1975 in Kiev, Ukraine, Milla Natasha Jovovich lived her early life in both Kiev and London while her father finished medical school. At the age of five she moved to California with her father and mother, an actress, and began modelling at age nine. After a few television appearances she made her big screen debut in 1991's "Return To The Blue Lagoon". She has since starred in several high profile films, notably the title roles in "The Fifth Element" and "The Messenger: The Story Of Joan Of Arc", and a prostitute in the Spike Lee Joint "He Got Game". For her role in The Fifth Element, she and director Luc Besson (her fiancé) developed the language spoken by her character in the film, and by the end of shooting, they were having full conversations in the language.

Jovovich released the favorably reviewed album "The Divine Comedy" in 1994, prompting comparisons to Kate Bush among others. She released an Internet-only experimental electronica album in 1998 called The Peopletree Sessions, and is currently working on more traditional rock music with a new band, Plastic Has Memory. She says she continues to model for companies like Revlon and Calvin Klein because the money allows her to develop music independently without relying on a record contract.

Selected Filmography:

• 1999 - The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc
• 1998 - He Got Game
• 1997 - The Fifth Element
• 1993 - Dazed And Confused
• 1992 - Chaplin
• 1992 - Kuffs
• 1991 - Return To The Blue Lagoon

Proof? She cut her hair like a boy and dressed in clunky armor to play Joan of Arc in The Messenger, directed by Luc Besson, who, we must note, she was married to after he directed her as Leeloo in The Fifth Element.

(Oh, and yes by the way, Milla does use L'oreal makeup. "They have really great foundation. I have been using it a lot. I use their mascara. I use their smoky eyeliner. Their big, fat pencils are cool; they look like my mom's from the '80s.")

She has released two albums, the first one being The Divine Comedy which is very pretty and folk. Thats in contrast to her dark lyrics which are too mature for teen-angst but were nevertheless written at sixteen years old. The second album, The Peopletree Sessions, was more of a side project, which she describes as "hardcore space Frank Sinatra music". It is very scratchy and tortured electronica. There are a few bootlegged CDs floating around of her new band Plastic Has Memory, which is more P.J. Harvey than Sarah McLachlan.

A skinny, left-handed, gorgeous creature with a world weary, raspy voice. Dorky, sophisticated, dresses like a model, then like a schoolmarm, very eclectic, very flirty and sometimes very mature, she is "the best and the worst at times". She's enthusiastic, she LOVES learning and just throwing herself into every experience. She spoke to a few fans for months on the forum of one of her films The Claim. She spoke to them on the same level, very UnHollywood. One of her main philosophies of life is that being honest and open with yourself and to the world, is the most important thing.

Milla says that she can't say that she believes in God for sure, but that she believes in the human brain. She believes in the future, that which we cannot yet see. She is currently making her way through the Tao Of Physics, a book which links mysticism with science. When she meets somebody or hears of somebody travels beyond their limitations, she calls them a "Space Person". She keeps a file, which includes Voltaire, photographer Diane Arbus, and Jodie Foster (and not exclusively for the film Contact, which Milla loves).

Milla says of playing Leeloo, "She's so beautiful to me. She's so pure and fascinated with reality and she helped me capture that fascination with reality again. After I shot that movie, I swear I haven't been bored, ever, in the last four and a half years. It's impossible for me to be bored because I'm alive, and I'm going to die. Something clicks in my head and it's like 'Wow, how can I be bored when that wall has all those little dots on it and that texture, and it's like very, very, very cool...'" {the wall has a honeycomb texture} "Yeah. I could just sit and stare at that just by itself and imagine a picture I could take of it or, you know..."

Milla lives in New York with her gay friend, Chris Brenner. Her living room houses a million guitars (her favourite, a spruce-wood acoustic Epiphone), a million pillows, a pile of coffee table books (not piled on a coffee table), a drum set, bongos, wall hangings, grandma lamps (including a gold elephant table lamp), purple table mosaic, camera equipment (including a vintage Rolleflex which Milla takes everywhere with her) candlesticks, wall mirrors.
Her kitchen houses a fridge full of film on the inside and graffiti provided by friends and ex-boyfriends on the outside, a cobalt glass collection, a prized candleabra that Milla found in Greece, a gold crushed-velvet divan (where Milla watches the Simpsons religiously, and answers piles of fan mail and eats all her meals- she never eats at the table), Milla's watercolor of a nude woman (her favorite subject to draw and photograph these days), inspired by an Egon Schiele exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art, plaster of paris wall hangings from a trip to Costa Rica, a Virgin Mary icon from Mexico.

Movies not already mentioned:
Two Moon Junction (1988)
The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988)
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
The Claim (2001) (formerly known as Kingdom Come)
Dummy (2001)
American Heroes (2001)
Zoolander (2001)
Resident Evil (2001)
You Stupid Man (2001)

Additional information can be found at an EXCELLENT website, millaj.com