COVER STORY: DONALD CLARKEmeets the Ukrainian-born supermodel turned actor Milla Jovovich
YOU'D EXPECT MILLA Jovovich to be a tough cookie, and so it transpires. Her performances as a zombie-annihilating Amazon in the Resident Evilfilms do little to forward the impression that she presses wild flowers in her idle hours. Her latest picture, a nifty thriller called A Perfect Getaway, finds her, once again, leaping over chasms and dodging hurtling boulders.
Mind you, nobody expects Daniel Radcliffe to perform conjuring tricks off-set or the Twilightcast to dine off one another's entrails. No. It's more than that. Unlike so many pampered American actors and supermodels, Jovovich, now a nimble 33, was forced to chew her away through some genuinely challenging experiences before she achieved proper fame. Born in Ukraine, and raised briefly in Moscow, she fled to Los Angeles with her family in 1981, only to encounter a new class of hardship. Her mother, a distinguished actor in her own country, found herself cleaning Brian de Palma's swimming pool to get by. Later, following her parents' divorce, her father served time in jail for a complex insurance fraud.
So, for one reason or another, I expect her to take no prisoners. Just remember how the unyielding inhabitants of Kiev reacted to their encirclement by the Nazis. That was in Ukraine. Wasn’t it?
"People do think of me as being strong, with Resident Eviland so on," she says in an accent that, despite nearly three decades in the US, still carries flavours of Eastern Europe. "I think everybody's got different facets in their make-up. It depends on the situation. If you try to harm my daughter I will kill you. That's for sure."
I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve seen her handle a four-barrelled, rapid-fire grenade launcher in Resident Evil. “On the other hand, I am a very forgiving person,” she continues. “I don’t nag if I am upset. I am non-confrontational. Often, somebody won’t know something bothers me for ages. Then it gets to a point where I crack and say: ‘Get out of my face!’ I keep it bottled up until I explode, rather than having constant problems with people.”
Her combative stance is somewhat undermined by the leisurely delivery that results from a severe case of jet lag. Impressively tall, scarily wide-eyed, dressed in a short blue thing that probably cost more than the vast sofa on which she’s curled, Jovovich, though very friendly, speaks as if she has just been dragged from her four-poster. Every now and then, she’ll pull out a Natural American Spirit cigarette, roll some of the tobacco into an ashtray and smoke the remaining, slightly flappy result.
“Oh man. I have been to New York and to Paris. Then back to LA. Then this trip was offered to come to London and I said yes. I immediately regretted it. I love London, but I miss my daughter. I’m very eager to get home.”
She seems genuinely keen on A Perfect Getaway. Set in Hawaii – though filmed in Puerto Rico – the picture follows a honeymooning couple as they attempt to make their way through the jungle without being massacred by a pair of knife-wielding maniacs.
“It’s nice to get to play a nice, normal girl for once,” she says. “I got to play with my baby in Puerto Rico and it was good not to have to be the ultimate strong woman in the film.”
Well, maybe. Her character is somewhat less fearsome than the heroine of Resident Evil, but nobody would mistake the unfortunate woman for Lizzie Dripping. Knives are wielded. Pistols discharged. The actor’s own undeniable strength of character never allows the fleeing newly-wed to seem like a victim.
So, where do we look for this inner steel? What, I wonder, does Jovovich remember of her early life in the then USSR?
“We moved to Moscow when I was very young, and moved to America when I was five. So I remember very little. I remember our apartment. I remember going on set with my mother. But I can’t offer any socio-economic analysis, if that’s what you want.”
Does she now regard herself as an American? She may still sound a bit Russian (or Ukrainian), but the majority of her formative experiences occurred in the United States.
“Yeah. I am American. Of course. I have an American passport, but I still feel a major affinity to Europe in general. I love European literature. I speak Russian and a few other languages. But I am American.”
The first two decades in the US were difficult for the Jovovich tribe. The rationale for her father’s flight from the USSR remains obscure – “political reasons,” she says – and the story behind his arrest in the United States is equally murky. At any rate, he eventually received a 20-year sentence in 1994, but was released after serving just five. There’s a gripping hard-luck story there if she ever fancies embarking on an autobiography.
“Oh, kids are more interested in just having fun,” she says with a sniff. “It doesn’t matter too much if it’s in one room or in a mansion. Actually they often prefer one room because everyone is together. But it is different being an immigrant. When you’re an immigrant you want to succeed. My parents were successful where they came from, so they were even keener to succeed. But yes, it was hard.”
It was Milla who eventually turned out to be the major breadwinner. When she was just nine, she began trying out for modelling assignments. Only a few years later, she secured high-paying gigs with the likes of Revlon and, in 1988, still just 13, secured her first professional contract. She has the kind of bold face that works well on magazine covers and, sure enough, those eyes soon popped up on the front of Harper's Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and Vogue. Later, Luc Besson, the extravagant French film director, lured her into The Fifth Element(camp science fiction) and The Messenger(as Joan of Arc). She has also recorded a passable pop album.
The dangers and temptations that accompany early success in modelling, acting or music are well known. Yet relatively few scandals have attached themselves to Jovovich. She has been married twice – to Besson and, more briefly, to American actor Shawn Andrews – and, later this month, will tie the knot with her daughter’s father, Paul WS Anderson, director of Resident Evil. But she has done a decent job of staying out of the gutter when photographers are lurking.
“Yeah, there is a lot of that in the entertainment world, sure,” she says. “Look, nightlife is part of your job in that business. At the same time, I had a strong family base. They had sacrificed a lot to achieve a better life and I wanted to honour that. I think the entertainment business is worse now, actually. Sure, there were people falling out of clubs when I was young, but not as much as now.”
She did once come out in favour of legalising cannabis in an interview with a magazine called (no further explanation required) High Times. I imagine that armies of media handlers had aneurisms when she made that statement.
“Oh, of course,” she laughs. “At the same time, I was a kid and I was a musician. It was the 1990s and everybody was open about smoking pot. So it seemed an obvious things to say. That was a while ago, though.”
I don't imagine Jovovich was ever in too much danger of drifting towards chemical dissolution. Everything about her radiates control and discipline. She now lives in LA and, between promotional duties for A Perfect Getawayand shooting a new film with Robert De Niro, she has somehow found time to plan her wedding. Plants have been bought from the local nursery. The greater Anderson clan has flown in from Newcastle on Tyne. My impression was that in LA, you hired a hatched-faced, heavily Botoxed wedding planner to do all this stuff for you.
“My best friend is helping me. We think it’s important to actually make the house look good permanently, rather than just throwing money away on a wedding. So we’ve bought plants that will stay there.”
Very sensible. You wouldn’t get that from a spoilt Valley girl. It does, however, sound awfully time-consuming. Does she ever find the space for full-on, vegetative relaxation?
“Not too much. I do like to watch American Idol. I’ll record several episodes and watch them all in one go. Also, what do I do? I draw. I do my music. I build dolls’ houses.”
Dolls’ houses? Well, that doesn’t sound too butch. Then again, maybe they’re really, really scary dolls’ houses.
A Perfect Getawayis on general release