Milla Jovovich just can’t understand why you’re shocked. “I’ve had a really great, really long, diverse career, but I feel like people are still constantly surprised that I’m good at something,” says Jovovich, admittedly a bit loopy from the cold medicine she took just prior to our conversation. Suddenly, she launches into her best mock movie critic voice to drive home the point: “Surprisingly great performance by Milla Jovovich!” It’s followed by a peal of laughter, but also by the wistful acknowledgement that after more than 20 years in front of the camera, both in film and fashion, it would be nice for some more-than-faint-praise commendation. Still, it’s not about to keep the woman dubbed by VH1 as “the reigning queen of kick-butt” up at night. “Whatever, it is what it is. I take everything with a pinch of salt,” she says. “I feel very blessed to still be around and relevant, doing lots of exciting things with my life.”

And what a life it is. The model-actress-singer-designer-mom, 36, helms a mega-successful action movie franchise (Resident Evil) with director/husband Paul W.S. Anderson; has sung with rock acts like The Crystal Method and Maynard James Keenan of Tool; was a Council of Fashion Designers of America award finalist as co-founder of the now defunct line Jovovich-Hawk; has appeared in more than 150 magazines; and has a nearly 4-year-old daughter named Ever Gabo J. Anderson (who gave her that cold). She is also a worldwide spokeswoman for L’Oréal Paris, thanks to her piercing eyes, impossibly high cheek bones and pouty Eastern European exoticism that have made her one of the most recognizable faces of the last three decades. With the release of The Three Musketeers: 3D and the indie comedy Dirty Girl this month—and the announcement of a fifth Resident Evil—it doesn’t look like things are going to quiet down for her anytime soon. Which is exactly the way she likes it.

When Jovovich’s parents emigrated from the Soviet Union to Sacramento in 1981 (later settling in Los Angeles), it wasn’t exactly the best time to be the Russian kid in an American elementary school. Cold War prejudices and a strange last name meant that Jovovich stood out, and not for the reasons that would catch famed fashion photographer Richard Avedon’s eye just a few years later. Her mother, Galina Loginova, had been a successful actress back in the Ukraine, emphasized the arts at home and sought to give Jovovich a head start on a career of her own. “She definitely took the liberty of taking matters into her own hands and made sure that I worked hard to do what I do,” she remembers. “Everybody has to work hard to be good at something.”

Jovovich may have been groomed for a life on the stage, but when Avedon selected some of her early test shots at 11 years old, it was the catwalk that propelled her to stardom. She was barely out of that primary school when she appeared in his photographs for Revlon’s “Most Unforgettable Women in the World” campaign. Two years later she would sign her first professional modeling contract. Covers for the likes of Vogue and Cosmopolitan soon followed, along with ads for Dior, Versace, Donna Karan and many more over the years.FULL ARTICLE