Milla Jovovich

Milla Jovovich, born Milica Natasha Jovovich on December 17, 1975, in Kyiv, Ukraine, relocated to the United States as a child and was raised in Los Angeles by her mother, a stage actress, after her parents separated. She was discovered by famed photographer Richard Avedon at age 11 and quickly rose to prominence in the fashion world, gracing the covers of more than a hundred magazines and becoming one of the world’s top-earning models by the early 2000s.

Transitioning into acting in the late ’80s, she debuted in The Night Train to Kathmandu (1988) and her breakthrough came with Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (1997), where she portrayed the unforgettable Leeloo. However, it was her role as Alice in the Resident Evil series (2002 onward) that solidified her status as a sci-fi/action icon—performing much of her own stunts in a career-defining role.

Beyond acting and modeling, Jovovich is a musician—releasing the album The Divine Comedy in 1994—and co-founded the fashion label Jovovich-Hawk (2003–2008) . She’s multilingual (fluent in English, Russian, French, Serbian), trained in martial arts, and has taken on producing roles and philanthropic efforts in various fields.

In her personal life, she had early short-lived marriages (1992 to Shawn Andrews, annulled; 1997–1999 with Luc Besson) before marrying director Paul W. S. Anderson in 2009, with whom she shares three daughters: Ever, Dashiel, and Osian. Jovovich continues to act in major projects, including recent films like Breathe (2024), In the Lost Lands (2025), Protector, Midnight, and the upcoming World Breaker.