Resident Evil: Extinction - Milla Jovovich Interview
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by Staci Layne Wilson
Resident Evil: Extinction star Milla Jovovich's jokes are really dated now, but they were funny then. It's June 2006, and she's referencing the George Clooney rumors that he demands no underling on any movie set should so much as look at him – "Stare at me! It's in my contract," she says. Her director, Russell Mulcahy is laughing at Milla's playfulness: "What are you on?" he asks.
A small group of genre journalists are here at Estudios Churubusco Azteca, watching a scene being shot against blue-screen. That's not always the most exciting thing to see, but I'd much rather have this memory than one from their recent location shoot in the desert, where temps went to 120.
Right now, Jovovich and two of her costars (Oded Fehr and Spencer Locke) are acting out a dialogue scene set inside the front cab of an Army truck. The story of Resident Evil: Extinction continues Alice's fight against the evil Umbrella Corp and their lab-engineered super-zombies. At the moment, the beleaguered trio is talking about a red diary they've found, which may hold the key to mankind's salvation.
After a few takes, Jovovich, still in her skimpy costume, takes a few moments to sit with the press and answer those burning questions.
Q: How is the truck sitting going?
Milla Jovovich: Listen, It's really too bad you guys came on like the one really boring dialogue day. It's all of that acting stuff now.
Q: So you've already shot a lot of the action stuff?
Milla: But seriously... like even on Friday in
Q: I was wondering about your costume, because I know that you have a lot of input on what you get to wear in your movies. Was it the same this time?
Milla: Well yeah. Me and my partner… our clothing line and actually designed it so... It was fun!
Q: Do you get to wear different things?
Milla: No, no, no. This is it. Alice is kind of a loner living in the desert on her own so she doesn't change much, you know.
Q: Jeremy Bolt, the producer, likened you to Charles Bronson. But you look more like Clint Eastwood.
Milla: I hope, like you said. More of a Clint Eastwood than a Bronson hopefully. Tell me when you see the movie. [mutters "A little too Bronson!"] I mean I've been trying to play... Clint Eastwood... I've been trying to play a little bit you know just... I don't know, just as natural as I can possibly make the scenario do you know what I mean. It's always just trying to keep it real.
Q: When you were done with Resident Evil 2, did you expect to do another one? What drew you to this script?
Milla: I thought it was really interesting and a real departure and all three movies are like 360 degrees from each other which is great. A different look, different characters and you know I think more than anything, you know you have her really kind of innocent in the first movie and now she's just kind of more hard, more sad, and a little bit more, not defeated but you know, "This is life now." There is no future for her, you know.
Q: Does it still have a dog in the movie?
Milla: No. He got written out, unfortunately. He was a nightmare on set.
Q: Were you able to utilize and of the martial arts you learned in Ultraviolet in this one?
Milla: Actually it was great because I have to a lot of knife work with these ah they're called cookeries. It was great cause I already knew how to use knives, well, knew how to use swords and like, police sticks so the knives is the same thing. It's the same kind of um, movements, it's just with a knife you know so it's been great. I haven't had to do a six month rehearsal process you know. I was kind of ready. Get everything shown in sync, bum, bum, bum, "Ok! I've got it."
Q: We heard there were some rewrites on the script?
Milla: Always re-writes but less on this than any of the other ones for sure. I mean this is like I think the strongest script. With the first one we had major re-writes, the ending and all that. On the second one too there was lots of little things that you know we ended up re-shooting and changing but this one you know it's like yeah little things here and there and just like, just to fill up space. Or "Oh, would my character really do that?" or whatever but nothing like changing the direction, or changing the whole like ending like in the in the first one.
Q: Well speaking of the ending, we were told that this one ends in a cliffhanger and they're already thinking of the fourth one. Are you coming back for a fourth one?
Milla: Well I don't die in this one. I shouldn't probably tell you that.
Q: We kind of figured that.
Milla: Though listen, even if I did, there's like a hundred clones of me in this movie so it doesn't really matter.
Q: There are clones of you?
Milla: Yeah. There's like a whole scene where they're dumping these clones of
Q: Like a mass grave of yourself. Creepy.
Milla: Well, I didn't actually see anything. I had to sort of act the mass grave.
Q: Why are they killing the Alice clones?
Milla: Because they're trying to get their very own
Q: So do you get to fight yourself?
Milla: No. That's not cool.
Q: Was that a real no?
Milla: I know! It is a real no. Cause it was a good idea! It was like hmm... I'll call Paul, "Change the script! Change the ending!"
Q: (unintelligible)
Milla: Um, well, she gets very like say psychic thingies. Psychic thingies! Hello (unintelligible) I'm trying not to do the Carrie thing obviously. I'm trying to do like my own little thing but yes, she bursts everything to flame and stuff. It's really cool! Yeah, It's more like she bursts things into flames and stuff. It's real useful against the birds and stuff cause there's a lot of them and they're everywhere. [makes explosion noises] Falling from the sky
Q: And is this power given to you by Umbrella?
Milla: No. In the last movie her metabolism bonded with the T virus so she's sort of adjusted to the sickness and now she's like a superhero.
Q: Do you think there's any hope for
Milla: No. Not at all. And I think the movie wouldn't be interesting if there was. You just couldn't imagine
Q: Your rapport with Russell on set, was great. It looked like you're really comfortable. What does he bring as a director for this one that is challenging you or is bringing the dynamic a little different?
Milla: You know, Russell is a really fun guy and he's got a lot of energy and he's just like super frantic, super panicky, always in ten different places at the same time. We have to always be like "Russell, go back to the monitor, ok!" He's like "mrhuhrrrrrr!" He's very sweet and very cute and he's got a great vision I mean the dailies look gorgeous! Like the way he's shooting everything is so cool! He does all these like dirty shots like pans, like lots of wide shots like really beautiful. I mean taking advantage of the desert and this incredible set that they built. It's really cool It looks different.
I think the camera work is much better in this one than it's been in either of the two movies. [whispers] No offense to Derek Rogers, but I think it looks really great. You know he brings like an energy because like a lot of times the director will sort of, in my experience, the not totally great ones, like they kind of will tell you what your doing in the scene but they don't remind you where you just came from or where your going so I would go to like to do ADR and feel like "But I wish I was more like this and that's just came out of a fight with my boyfriend or a fight with zombies and you know and it doesn't look like it or something but he's always there going "Ok, You just came from here, your going there you did this, that and that and blah blah blah." so he kind of gets you into the moment really well and I'm sure you heard him say that's good. You know it's really important for him that we're there cause you know one of the problems with these kind of films I think is when people sleepwalk through it. They're kind of cashing in and we're trying to feel the reality. If this was really happening you know, what it would really be like.
Q: How do you keep the energy and the passion up?
Milla: Well listen, man. How do you keep it down? It's a movie for god's sakes! It's exciting you know and it's amazing. That's cool!
Q: Your devotion is obvious, with these films. Is there anything that Paul would have written to the script that you would have went "Absolutely not! I'm not going to be part of the third film…"
Milla: On the second one, that happened. You know, Resident Evil did come from like the underground sort of independent film circuit so definitely. No… I think the second one, it's just for whatever reason, it wasn't my favorite, right. I liked the first one better. I mean and plus I did some really dangerous stunts that I felt like you really didn't see what was happening. Like, what we did was insane! When I saw the friggin shot I was like, "You can't even tell that that's me." "You can't even tell how high I am. You can't tell..."
So and I'm telling everyone like, I jumped off a six story building, and I'm running down and then I see it and I'm like, "No one is even going to know!" So whatever, I had my little problems with the second one. Same guy! You know I think as like a trilogy I think it's great. You know it's an exciting film. You know after I saw it and I changed a lot in the dubbing. Like that was one of my biggest problems with the director of the second one was I just felt like he wasn't in the moment. In one of my scenes, I started talking in my normal voice and I'm like "Carlos, The T virus is like bonded!" At the time I was just being real and then I look back and I'm like "I sound like a valley girl talking about the T virus."
I thought, well whatever. That's not... I don't want to get... I've noticed the walls have ears. Um, yeah but I think this particular film is ... I'm very much more excited about. It's just, I don't know. It just flowed. Paul did a good job with the script and in the second one he was under a lot of pressure by Sony to like… It's like "No! There's not enough time went by. Like, why do we need to do the second one? Like, let's wait!" But they just really wanted to ah, you know they just really wanted to pop right into it.
Q: What's next for you? Another action movie?
Milla: Well, my next film that I'm doing I play like an upper class woman from the second empire. So it's going to be very different and it's a Russian part so I get to speak with a Russian accent and sort of go back to my roots. Um and you know I... listen unfortunately for me, the action films are the biggest films that I do. Everything else is independent and tiny and small and God knows when it's going to come out or how it's going to be distributed. These are the films that people see. These are the ones that make it overseas, these are the ones that have a lot of money put into their publicity… I mean you guys are all here, right?
This doesn't happen on independent films and things so ah, For me one of the most depressing things, why I have a clothing line you know and why I do other things is because you have to do so many movies to have like, one that your happy with. Or one that comes out that's genius. So many things can go wrong like I can't tell you how many times I felt like I just gave the performance of a lifetime. Then I see the movie and I'm like "Oooooh my god! How did that happen?" Like, why did they pick that and why did they pick this and it's just unfortunate so you just keep turning them out as much as you can to get that one that just works you know. It's just kind of the nature of the beast I guess. Once everybody gets their two cents put in, the crew's a lot of times like a soup.
Like a soup with too many ingredients.
Q: Kurt Wimmer, the director Ultraviolet, said he was not happy with the direction it went. Have you spoken to him at all?
Milla: Listen! All I can tell you is I was completely locked from the editing room which was unfortunate because I was promised that wouldn't be and in both Resident Evils I had a lot of input into like, just the movie before it was finished. More on the first than on the second but on Ultraviolet I was very depressed because he was a real cad in the sense that he didn't allow me to see my performances. I said "Listen, I don't want to step on your feet but there's certain things that I did like that I would remember."
Like… Oh, you know what, in that scene, take three there was just a little movement of my eye that's cool in the close-up. Let's just see... or whatever you know. It's unfortunate cause that was like the perfect example of a movie that I spent a year of my life preparing for and shooting and once you see it you're like, "Ok. On to the next!"