Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson’s successful partnership continues with their ninth movie

LOS ANGELES – English film-maker Paul W.S. Anderson and American actress Milla Jovovich have made nine movies together since 2002 – and been a couple for nearly as long.

Their latest offering is In The Lost Lands, a fantasy epic now showing in Singapore cinemas and based on a short story by Game Of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin.

Anderson wrote and directed the video game-inspired action horror movie Resident Evil (2002), which is how he met Jovovich. In the film, she played the protagonist Alice, a super-powered covert operative turned zombie killer.

They got married in 2009, and Resident Evil went on to become a six-film collaboration (2002 to 2016) that grossed more than US$1.2 billion (S$1.6 million) worldwide.

In a Zoom interview with The Straits Times on Anderson’s 60th birthday on March 4, the two laugh and beam at each other constantly.

And Jovovich, 49, pauses every so often to gaze adoringly at her spouse, with whom she shares three daughters aged 17, nine and five.

Asked what they have planned for his birthday, the director says: “We’re doing what we love – publicising a movie.”

“And we’re watching the movie in George R.R. Martin’s private movie theatre tonight,” adds Jovovich, whose breakout role was as the orange-haired supreme being Leeloo in science-fiction actioner The Fifth Element (1997).

The couple have flown to Santa Fe, New Mexico – where Martin lives – for a premiere of In The Lost Lands, which follows a powerful witch (Jovovich) as she recruits a hunter (Dave Bautista) to guide her through a treacherous wasteland.

Anderson admits he felt “really stressed” when he showed Martin the film for the first time, but it got a seal of approval from the 76-year-old American author, whose A Song Of Ice And Fire fantasy novels (1996 to present) inspired the hit series Game Of Thrones (2011 to 2019) and House Of The Dragon (2022 to present).

“He said he loved it and felt like it was the best adaptation of his work he’d seen,” says Anderson, who directed the movie and co-wrote the story.

And Jovovich felt the pressure, too, because she is “a huge fan” of Martin’s work and “the one in the family who’d read all of his books”.

Anderson says: “In fact, she was the one who brought me onto the project and brought the whole thing together, which is why she’s taking a full producer credit.”

Asked if they would work as well together if they were not married to each other, Jovovich says: “Yes, we’d be fine. We didn’t get married for ages and we literally decided to because we had kids.”

After 20 years together, it is no surprise the pair – who also teamed up for action adventure The Three Musketeers (2011) and monster movie Monster Hunter (2020) – have perfected a formula for making it work professionally, even when they disagree.

“Milla and I get to set an hour before the crew turns up, and that’s when we get time one on one to thrash out ideas.

“There’s room for disagreements because you can work through them without 150 people watching.

“And out of those disagreements often comes something much better than if I just got my own way,” admits Anderson, who helmed the cult science-fiction films Alien Vs. Predator (2004) and Event Horizon (1997).

Jovovich enjoys every minute of the back and forth.

“It’s so fun for me because I have my own personal director and screenwriter right there,” she says as Anderson chuckles.

The star does occasionally change her mind about things last minute, to his chagrin. “But he’s just so sweet and patient about it,” she says.

“Sometimes, I’ll ask a question and he’ll say, ‘You’re right.’ And then sometimes he’ll go, ‘No, this is why it’s the way it is’, which makes me feel better.

“But we’re used to each other. And we’re lucky to be able to have these conversations without one person getting super offended,” she adds.