page_title: Milla Jovovich
section_title: International success (2002–2009)
hierarchical_section_title: Milla Jovovich / Career / International success (2002–2009)
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Milla Jovovich in Cannes (2002)English: Milla Jovovich at Cannes (2002)Français&#160;: Milla Jovovich à Cannes (2002)
context_page_description: Milica Bogdanovna Jovovich is an American actress, model, and musician. Her starring roles in numerous science fiction and action films led the music channel VH1 to deem her the "reigning queen of kick-butt" in 2006. In 2004, Forbes determined that she was the highest-paid model in the world.
  Born in Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, Jovovich emigrated with her parents to London when she was five, and then to Sacramento, California; she finally settled in Los Angeles seven months later. In 1987, at the age of 12, she began modeling when Herb Ritts photographed her for the cover of the Italian magazine Lei. Richard Avedon featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In 1988, Jovovich made her screen debut in the television film The Night Train to Kathmandu and appeared in her first feature film, Two Moon Junction.
  Jovovich gained attention for her role in the 1991 romance film Return to the Blue Lagoon, as she was then only 15. She was considered to have a breakthrough with her role in the 1997 French science fiction action film The Fifth Element, written and directed by Luc Besson. She and Besson married that year, but soon divorced.
context_section_description: 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 US$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, 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 US$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.
caption: Jovovich at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival
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