Resident Evil : Afterlife 3D | About the Cast | Milla Jovovich

MILLA JOVOVICH (Alice) has successfully established herself as a highly regarded, international model and actress.  Jovovich, (pronounced "mee-luh" "yo-vo-vitch") has transitioned effortlessly to a full time actress, starring in over two dozen films.

Star of the Resident Evil franchise, Jovovich will reprise her role as “Alice” in the fourth installment of the film for Sony Screen Gems. In Resident Evil: Afterlife, Alice is on a mission to save survivors in from falling victim to the Undead in a world ravaged by a virus infection.  Written and directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, the film will be released nationwide on September 10, 2010.

In October 2010, Jovovich will star alongside Academy Award® winner Robert DeNiro and Academy Award® nominee Edward Norton in Stone. In the film, Jovovich portrays the wife of a convicted arsonist (Edward Norton) who is deployed in a psychological game of cat-and-mouse with his parole officer (Robert De Niro).  The Overture film is directed by John Curran.

Jovovich recently wrapped two independent films, including Faces in the Crowd, a psychological thriller centering on a woman (Jovovich) who barely survives an attack by a serial killer and wakes up in hospital with a head injury that leaves her "face-blind" (prosopagnosia). No longer able to recognize faces, she must navigate a world in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them. All the while the killer is closing in, determined to eliminate the potential witness. Julian McMahon also stars.  In Dirty Girl, Jovovich stars alongside William H. Macy and Juno Temple. “Dirty Girl” is a comedic story of the search for identity and the redemptive power of unexpected friendship. Danielle (Temple) is the dirty girl of Norman High School. When Danielle's misbehavior gets her banished to special ed, she teams up with an innocent closet-case and together they head out on a road trip to discover each other and themselves through a funny and serendipitous friendship.

In July 2010, Jovovich will portray the lead in Bringing Up Bobby, the directorial debut of actress Famke Janssen. Bringing Up Bobby is the story of a European con-artist (Jovovich) and her son Bobby, who find themselves in Oklahoma in an effort to escape her past and build a better future. Olive and Bobby blithely charm their way from one adventure to another until Olive's criminal past catches up with her. Consequently, she must make a choice: continue with a life of crime or leave the person she loves most in an effort to give Bobby a proper chance in life. The film will shoot over the course of one month in Oklahoma.

Upon wrapping Bringing Up Bobby, Jovovich will commence production on The Three Musketeers, reteaming with director Paul W.S. Anderson.  Jovovich will portray Milady de Winter alongside a cast which also includes Christoph Waltz, Orlando Bloom, Luke Evans and Mads Mikkelson. Filming begins in September in Europe.

At the age of eleven, Jovovich was spotted by photographer Richard Avedon, who featured her in Revlon's "Most Unforgettable Women in the World" advertisements. In October 1987, she was on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine Lei, her first of many covers. In 1988, she signed her first professional modeling contract.

Milla has appeared in hundreds of magazines and on dozens of covers. She has been featured in ad campaigns for several brands, including Banana Republic, Christian Dior, Damiani, Donna Karan, Gap, Versace, Mango, Etro. Milla has been an international spokesmodel for L'Oréal cosmetics since 1998. In addition to L'Oréal, Milla has been in campaigns for L'Oréal, ICB, Ann Taylor, and Mercedes-Benz recently.

Milla's early modeling led to acting roles, and in 1988 she appeared in her first film role in the romance thriller Two Moon Junction. Her first leading role was in Return to the Blue Lagoon in 1991, for which she was nominated for the "Best Young Actress Starring in a Motion Picture" in the 1991 Young Artist Awards. She appeared on some TV shows around this time and also in the films Kuffs (1992), Chaplin (1992), and Dazed and Confused (1993).

Milla's breakout role was as Leeloo, the perfect being in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997). She later starred in several other action movies besides the Resident Evil trilogy such as Ultraviolet (2006), A Perfect Getaway (2009), and The Fourth Kind (2009).

Milla has also been in several comedies and dramas, including Spike Lee's He Got Game (1998), The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), The Claim (2000), The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Zoolander (2001), Dummy (2003), No Good Deed (2003) and You Stupid Man (2003).

In 1994, Milla released her critically acclaimed folk album, The Divine Comedy. Inspired by a love of "elves and magic trees", Milla wrote the lyrics at 15 and recorded the album when she was just 16. Acoustic, folky, and hard to categorize, the eleven songs on The Divine Comedy are laced with Slavic sadness and X-istential self-doubt. "In a Glade" is a beautiful traditional Ukrainian folk song that Milla sings in her native tongue.

Milla led a band called Plastic Has Memory which played about a dozen shows in Los Angeles and New York City in 1999. Although Plastic Has Memory never released a record, they did contribute one song, "On the Hill", to Hollywood Goes Wild, a benefit CD for The Wildlife Waystation.

Milla performed the song "Left and Right" at Fashion Rocks in London, England in October 2003 (MP3). She has also had songs on several albums, including 2 cover versions of Lou Reed's "Satellite of Love" on the The Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack (2000), "Rocket Collecting" on the “Underworld” soundtrack (2003), and "Shein Vi Di L'Vone" & "Mezinka" (Yiddish Klezmer songs) on the Dummy soundtrack (2003).

Milla has collaborated with Puscifer (Maynard James Keenan of Tool and A Perfect Circle) several times. She sang on "Rev 22:20" on the Underworld soundtrack (2003) and also on the Renholder remix of The Cure's "Underneath The Stars" on the Underworld: Rise of the Lycans soundtrack (2009).  Milla also sings on "The Mission" and performed live with Puscifer at The Pearl in Las Vegas on February 13, 2009.  Milla sang on "We Are Family" (2001) (American Red Cross benefit CD), "Former Lover" from Deepak Chopra's album, A Gift of Love II: Oceans of Ecstasy (2002), and "I Know It's You" by The Crystal Method (2004).  Milla continues to write demos. These demos are available here for free. Fans are encouraged to enjoy them and remix them, but may not sell them.

Jovovich-Hawk was a fashion line founded by Milla and Carmen Hawk in 2003. Jovovich-Hawk was a finalist in 2006 for the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA)/Vogue Fashion Fund initiative. The popular fashion chainMango released a Jovovich-Hawk for MNG collection in 2007. Jovovich-Hawk ended in 2008.

Milla is an ambassador for amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS Research) and also supports several other charities, including OCRF (Ovarian Cancer Research Fund), The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, Wildlands Project, and UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

When she is not in production, Milla resides in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, Ever.

Resident Evil : Afterlife 3D | Shooting in 3-D

From the Umbrella Corporation’s high-tech subterranean hideout in Tokyo to the smoldering Los Angeles skyline, Resident Evil: Afterlife is packed with eye-popping stunts, spectacular sets and stunning visual effects that take full advantage of the benefits of 3-D.

“When I was writing it, I knew it was going to be a 3-D movie,” says Anderson. “I tried to write situations and environments into the screenplay that would play well in 3-D. I firmly believe 3-D is a paradigm shift in cinema right now. Soon, it will become the industry standard, and it’s very exciting to be making one of the first real 3-D movies. And I do say ‘real’ because we shot a three-dimensional film. It’s not something that was shot as a 2-D film and then had 3-D layered over the top of it.”

One of 3-D’s most exciting qualities is the ability to immerse the audience in the story, says the director. “It sucks the audience into an environment. It’s similar to the advances that sound has made since I was a kid. Instead of sound coming just from the front of the theater, there are speakers inside and at the back of cinemas, so eventually you are completely cocooned in sound. Now, with 3-D, the image is doing what sound has already been doing for twenty years. It’s helping immerse you in the world that’s being portrayed by the movie.” 

Working with the new technology required adjustments in virtually every aspect of the production process. “I was lucky to have some very strong collaborators,” says Anderson. “Both Arvinder Grewal, our production designer, and Dennis Berardi, the visual effects supervisor, were designing the movie with me even before we shot a frame of film.”

In the film, the Umbrella Corporation headquarters is bright, polished and meticulously designed. Outside, the post-Apocalyptic world has a grayish, brownish hue and a cloud constantly hovering overhead. “The imagined future in this film started with Paul’s written word,” says Grewal. “Paul conceived two opposite realms: the underground world of The Umbrella Corporation and the devastation of the planet outside it. The Umbrella Corporation has everything, or they know how to get it. The rest of the world is struggling for survival. Our imaginary future is the clash between these two worlds.” 

Berardi’s realization of those concepts was critical in a film where the locations were as much visual effects as they were physical sets. “We created a completely decimated Los Angeles cityscape,” he says. “It’s L.A. like you've never seen it. We completely destroyed Tokyo. In some shots, we're seeing upwards of 500,000 undead zombies. Our goal was always to have our effects seamlessly integrate into the visual style of the movie, so you don't know what is created digitally and what is practical.    

“Using 3-D technology elevates the franchise,” he continues. “It puts an exclamation point on everything. The 3-D adds a really exciting nature to the visual effects. It makes you feel like you're enveloped in the story, so that whole visual aspect is brand new.”

Resident Evil wouldn’t be the same without audience and gamer favorites, the dogs. “This is the fourth time we've seen them in a movie and they’re horrendous because they’ve also been coping with the virus for four years,” says special effects makeup supervisor Paul Jones. “But these dogs are much more elaborate than any that have come before. I'm really looking forward seeing those guys on the big screen.”

Jones was also responsible for creating a new look for the mutated zombies. “We have burrowing zombies,” he says. “We have water zombies. We have what I'm calling L.A. zombies. The distinctions between each of those were fun to work out. The burrowing undead have been living underground in the sewers and using their teeth and fingernails to chew through concrete and rebar and dirt,” he continues. “They've stripped themselves of their lips and some of their facial tissue, and of their fingertips, essentially. And because of the T-virus mutation, they have these lovely mandibles coming out of their mouths.”

Glenn MacPherson, the film’s director of photography, who also shot The Final Destination in 3-D, says the biggest surprise for his crew was the amount of hardware required. “There’s a big footprint,” he says. “The first time we set up a shot, half the studio was the set and the other half was entirely filled with the technology.”

Although for much of the shoot, MacPherson used twin Sony F35 cameras, Resident Evil: Afterlife is the first movie to shoot 3-D using twin Phantom cameras for certain scenes. Phantoms, which were developed by NASA to capture minute cracks and stresses on Space Shuttle tiles during launch, are designed to shoot at 1,000 frames per second (fps) or more, as compared to 24 fps, at which standard movie cameras operate.

According to MacPherson, the Phantom was notably used in scenes with bullets or drops of water. One such instance was the rainy scene at the Shibuya Crossing scene near the beginning of the movie. “Shooting raindrops at 200 fps is remarkable. You can follow the individual drops all the way down. 200 fps makes regular time look four times slower than real time. Shooting at 1000fps would mean you could walk out of the theater, get another tub of popcorn and be back in time to see the end of the shot.”

Cutting-edge innovations sometimes tested the filmmakers’ ingenuity. “Most conventional camera equipment didn’t work for our purposes,” says Anderson. “Stabilized heads, motion control rigs and high-tech camera cranes are all built for lightweight film or digital cameras. A 3-D camera is essentially two cameras tied together, so it’s extremely heavy. We couldn’t just put them on existing equipment. Techniques we’ve taken for granted for twenty years, like Steadicam rigs, no longer worked. We ended up putting the camera operator on a Segway and it looked exactly like a Steadicam shot.”

Niven Howie, who edited Resident Evil: Extinction, cut the fourth installment as well. Although it was the third movie Anderson and Howie have made together, the pair had to learn to work in new way. “Normally, you cut the whole movie, and then hand it over to visual effects,” says Anderson. “In this case, we would fine-cut the action scenes, do visual effects and then start trying to assemble the movie. I felt like I was back to making my first movie all over again, when I had no money and no film and no time and I had to really shoot to cut.” 

After a battery of test shots, Anderson was able to devise strategies for the specialized demands of 3-D. “We found that you really don’t need as many close-ups,” says Howie. “There’s so much to look at within the frame. If someone moves in a 3-D stereoscopic environment, you just don’t cut as quickly. It is a kind of throwback to an old-fashioned form of moviemaking, but with incredibly modern technology.”

Even the franchise’s signature stunts were adapted for 3-D. A seasoned stuntwoman, Jovovich still had one unexpected surprise. “There’s a lot you can get away with in 2-D that just doesn’t work in 3-D—like the simple punch,” she notes. “In 2-D, you swing at someone, the other actor falls back, you add the sound effect and you’ve sold the punch. In 3-D with the almost 360-degree coverage you get with double sets of cameras, you can see if the fist doesn’t connect with the face. We were doing one fight sequence and I kept hearing, ‘Get closer, get closer, get closer’ until I was actually hit in the head. It’s a super 3-D experience! It’s not just an actor acting anymore—you might really get hit in this movie!”

It all adds up to a totally fresh Resident Evil movie, according to Anderson. “Even if you’ve seen the other films, I guarantee you that you’ve never seen anything like this one. It’s going to reinvent Resident Evil and make it brand new again for people. People who’ve seen all four movies have told me that it doesn’t feel like Resident Evil 4. This feels like Resident Evil 1. It’s like the start of a whole new franchise.” 

Resident Evil : Afterlife 3D | Casting

The cast of Resident Evil: Afterlife features some fresh faces as well as several that will be familiar to franchise fans. But no matter how popular a character becomes, warns Anderson, there are no guarantees of survival in the film’s brutal, futuristic world.

“The Resident Evil franchise has become well known for bringing back popular characters for another outing,” Anderson says. “It’s also famous for killing them off without warning. We’ve established that just because you’re a big character in the video game and you were in the last movie, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to kill you in this movie. We did it with several characters in the last film. I think that gives a level of uncertainty in the films that make them truly scary.” 

There is one constant in the franchise, however: Alice, played by Milla Jovovich. “Alice is the ultimate heroine,” says producer Don Carmody. “She’s a combination of Wonder Woman and Indiana Jane and she’s out there kicking ass and taking names.” 

After eight years and four films, Jovovich knows the role better than anyone, Anderson says. “When I first talked to her about Alice, I used references like Clint Eastwood from the Dirty Harry films, Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen. They were existential characters, but, damn, they were cool. Plenty of guys have tried to be the new Clint Eastwood or the new Steve McQueen, but there aren’t many women who have played those characters and played them as convincingly as Milla has.” 

In fact, Jovovich is one of the very few women ever to successfully anchor an action franchise. “Sigourney Weaver had the same kind of success with the Alien franchise,” points out Anderson. “I think it’s for the same reason. She is a very good actress who really makes you believe in the alien and in that far-flung, science fiction world. Milla does that for us.”

Jovovich says she has grown attached to her character over the years. “I’m always excited to see where she’s going next,” explains the actress. “She’s become such a huge part of my world. As I’ve become more immersed in the world, she’s almost become a part of me.”

The character has evolved since the first film, according to Jovovich. “Alice started out as an innocent character who doesn’t remember anything that’s happened to her. Eventually she realizes she caused the accident that started the outbreak of the T-virus. She has a great sense of guilt and self-loathing by the second movie.

“Because Umbrella is constantly trying to trap her, she can’t be with anyone that she cares about because they could potentially be captured,” she continues. “Alice has become a very lonely person. In this movie, she’s taking back her self-respect. For the first time in a long time, she feels like she belongs in this world again. It’s been quite a beautiful progression for me to play as an actress.”

With each film, Anderson tries to present Jovovich with a fresh challenge. In Resident Evil: Afterlife, he gives her the task of playing an army of Alice clones. Jovovich approached the multiple roles with enthusiasm. “There’s only one of me, obviously,” she says. “But I have to play each of the Alices. I wanted to get creative with it as well, so each Alice has her own personality. They’re not carbon copies of each other.”

The characterizations were so subtle, says Anderson, it wasn’t until he began editing that he fully appreciated the nuances. “It was only when we composited three Millas together that I realized they were actually three completely different characters. This is Milla’s franchise and she keeps it alive by investing a thousand percent in it. People see the honesty and the integrity in what she’s doing and that’s why they buy into the movies.”

Resident Evil: Afterlife reunites Alice with a fellow survivor from the previous film, Claire, played again by Ali Larter. Jovovich feels the same bond with her co-star that Alice has with her comrade-in-arms. “We’re really a team,” says Jovovich. “She brings such realism to the material. It’s a pleasure to work with a strong, intelligent, gorgeous female. It pushes me to be my best and I think I push her to do better and better. It’s so nice to work with someone who inspires you.”

Larter was thrilled that Anderson brought her back in what has become an iconic role for her. She was also eager to work with Jovovich again. “One of the unique things about this story is that it has two fierce female characters,” Larter says. “Alice and Claire are both fighters, but Alice is almost a mythical figure. Claire is the human component. She has an indestructible spirit. They both will do whatever they have to do to survive, but they also have a need to take care of others.”

Claire, who was last seen leading a group of survivors to what they believed was a safe haven in Arcadia, Alaska, has had most of her memory wiped clean when Alice discovers her wandering in the Arctic wilderness. “She is in complete and utter survival mode,” says Larter. “In the last movie, Claire became a reluctant leader. In this movie, that has become her natural instinct. As soon as she discovers that, she starts to fulfill her true destiny.

“A lot of what Claire experiences is about faith and trust,” adds Larter. “She has to decide whether she can believe what someone tells her or whether she needs to remember and experience it herself. It’s also the struggle of personal sacrifice. Both Alice and Claire have lost so many friends, as well as some of the ideals and hopes they had. They’re living in a much harsher reality.”

Working in 3-D has upped the ante for the franchise, in Larter’s opinion. “We are at the forefront of 3-D technology with this film and it’s thrilling to watch something new being created,” she says. “This is Paul Anderson’s vision of what happens when the world ends. It’s zombies and kicking ass and fighting for survival. By doing it in 3-D, we set those images on fire.”

Despite the advanced technology used to make the film, some aspects of the production process still require actors to perform demanding action sequences in front of the camera. “Both Milla and I love to do our own stunts and part of the fun in this movie is the physicality that comes along with it,” says Larter. “We were shooting in torrential rain and about six inches of mud. People were slipping and sliding, I was face down in the dirt and I looked up to see about a hundred and ten people, in galoshes, hats, rain gear, all covered to the nines, and I thought, this is my day job?” 

In each of the previous films, Alice has formed a surrogate family of sorts with other survivors she encounters. This time, Anderson has added an actual brother-sister relationship featuring one of the game’s most popular characters, Chris Redfield, Claire’s brother. “I love the family dynamic that Paul has added,” says Larter. “I think it really grounds the movie in a place that people can relate to. But we definitely do not fall into ‘Oh, my long-lost brother’ reunion mode. It’s actually more of a kick-ass moment.”

Wentworth Miller, who had just finished playing four years as Michael Scofield on “Prison Break,” finds himself back behind bars when his character is introduced. “Chris Redfield had been working with a military unit that was using the prison as a staging post when the outbreak began,” he explains. “When the inmates were released to help fight the undead, they mistook Redfield for a guard and left him in a high security cell in the prison.”

Miller says he had some initial doubts about the role. “When I first got the script, I thought it was practical joke,” Miller says. “You meet my character in prison and the first thing out of his mouth is, ‘I know a way out of here.’ As great as the part is and as terrific as the franchise is, I thought it felt too familiar. But I developed a different perspective after a while. If you don’t know me from ‘Prison Break,’ then you’re going to watch this and nothing’s amiss. For those who do, it’s kind of a cool wink-wink to all the fans who stuck with Michael Scofield for 81 episodes. In a way, this is my chance to give that character a different ending.”

Chris and Claire Redfield were separated soon after the T-virus was unleashed. Both assume the other is long dead. “He’s just emerging from the cell where he’s been imprisoned for years and suddenly there’s the face of his long-lost sister,” says Miller. “There’s a tremendous moment of shock and recognition, followed by a surge of emotion and tenderness, But at the same time, it’s Resident Evil. Just as the scene begins to tiptoe into sentimental territory, there’s this shift and it becomes about these characters being in conflict.” 

Like everyone involved in the franchise, Miller is respectful of its tremendously loyal fan base. “As far as I’m concerned, this is already locked and loaded. Resident Evil: Afterlife does what the franchise has been doing for eight years, which is exploring this magnificent, rich, dark post-apocalyptic scenario. Not only do you get the chills and the spills and the thrills, you also get interesting, believable, relatable characters that you can live through vicariously. Not for a moment would you want to experience what Alice or Claire or Chris is experiencing, but it’s a hell of a ride.” 

Being on set with the film’s leading lady was a revelation for Miller. “I only knew Milla as this gorgeous, kick-ass warrior,” he confesses. “She’s so impressive on screen, the way she holds herself—the swords, the knives. Then I find that she’s a total cut-up. She’s really got this loud, loose, in-your-face laugh and a sense of humor that makes her seem like one of the guys. To find all of that in the same package with her beauty and intelligence and the acting chops is extraordinary.” 

Also new to the world of Resident Evil is actor Boris Kodjoe, who plays Luther West, the unofficial head of a small group of survivors barricaded into a prison. “Luther is a natural leader,” says Kodjoe. “He is an ex-pro athlete who assumes his leadership position out of necessity. He’s confident; he’s very disciplined, and that is what keeps him sane.”

Kodjoe, whose recent feature film credits include major roles in Surrogates, opposite Bruce Willis, and Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion, had planned to be a professional tennis player until a back injury put him on the sidelines. “I could relate immediately to where Luther was coming from,” he says. “It was exciting to me because I got to focus on getting ready for the film physically and mentally. It gave me something to grab hold of. I would do push-ups and crunches on set to get ready for the take and it got my blood flowing.”  

Alice and Luther connect immediately, almost instinctively, he says. “They’re both alpha dogs. She’s very strong and confident woman and he gravitates towards that. They become teammates, so to speak, and they’re going to find a way out together.” 

Kodjoe promises fans that Resident Evil: Afterlife is by far the scariest movie in the series. “The zombies are beyond scary,” he says. “They’re super-special, Type A zombies. There’s a character from the game called the Axeman. He makes me look tiny. I don’t think people are ready for the Axeman—he’s very intimidating. There are all kinds of surprises waiting around every corner.”

Kodjoe impressed Jovovich not only with his acting skills, but also with his dedication to his family. “Boris is one of the most outstanding human beings I’ve ever met,” says Jovovich. “He is a real hero. His daughter has spina bifida, and Boris and his wife have started a foundation called Sofie’s Voice to raise money for research. It is unbelievable what these two people have accomplished for their daughter. He’s such an inspiration.”

Any story set in Hollywood has to include a movie producer and in Resident Evil: Afterlife, that slot is filled by Bennett Sinclair, played by Kim Coates. “Kim is an unbelievably hilarious guy,” says Jovovich. “He’s a great actor and a great improviser, who brings so much life to his character. He had everyone in stitches. It’s hard to keep a straight face when you’re working with him, because he’s just so funny.” 

Coates credits Anderson with creating a colorful character and then letting him run with it. “Paul was awesome,” he says. “He just let me go and bring some humor to my character. Bennett thinks a lot of himself and he’s not afraid to tell you that.

“He’s got a little Errol Flynn in him, a little swashbuckling,” Coates continues. “This guy’s definitely a survivor. There are good guys and bad guys in this story. I think he’s a bit of both. He’s certainly not on the bad team, but he does a couple of things in this movie that are shocking.”

For inspiration, Coates didn’t have to look past the movie set. “To play a film producer was great,” he says. “I liked to tell our producers, Don Carmody and Robert Kulzer, that I was picking up a few things from them. I never told them what those things were though.”

Spanish actor Sergio Peris-Mencheta rounds out the band of survivors. Resident Evil: Afterlife is only his is second film in the U.S. “I’m bilingual in Spanish and French, but my English is not as good,” he says. “Last year, Taylor Hackford was looking for an actor to play an Argentinean boxer in Love Ranch, and he found me on the Internet. I went to L.A. and auditioned with Helen Mirren and Joe Pesci and I got the job.”

“To be in this movie is to have one of my dreams come true,” he says  I’ve played the game for hours with my friends at home but I never thought I would be one of those guys  shooting zombies.” 

The film’s iconic villain is Albert Wesker, chairman of The Umbrella Corporation. “Wesker is the personification of the giant corporation that will stop at nothing to turn a profit,” says Carmody. 

A prominent character in the game series, “Chairman Wesker was a good guy in the early games,” says Bolt. “He's become a tremendously fun villain because he loves his villainy. He does it without becoming ridiculous, so we embrace that in the film. And the actor playing Wesker, Shawn Roberts, worked extremely hard to convey that.”

Wesker has become infected with the T-virus and it has made him virtually indestructible. “This is not the bad guy next door,” says Roberts of his character. “This is evil in the purest sense. I get a stake through the heart. I have my head blown off. They use knives, they use jet fuel, they use all these different elements to try and take this guy out, but no luck. Just like in the game, he is very difficult to kill.”

Playing such an outsized action character is the fulfillment of a childhood dream for the actor. “I constantly had to pinch myself because this is everything I’ve wanted to do since I was six years old,” says Roberts. “Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I have been watching Arnold and Bruce Willis and all these guys and wanting to be them. If dreams really do come true, this is the prime example of it. I’ve been training my entire life for this.”

Because Alice knows that Wesker is indestructible, she constantly has to devise different ways of challenging him, which makes for some mind-blowing fight scenes. “As Alice, Milla is as badass as they come,” says Roberts. “In between takes, she’s the sweetest person you could ever imagine, but when she steps on a set, that’s it. When you hear the sound of her boots, it’s game on. It’s an incredible transformation.”

Jovovich says Roberts makes the perfect Wesker. “On camera, he’s like the Terminator,” she says. “He fills the screen. In the last film, Wesker was a more sedate character sitting in a boardroom, so I think the fans will be really excited to see him kicking butt.”

That transformation is reflective of the entire cast, according to Jovovich. “Resident Evil: Afterlife takes the franchise to a whole new level,” she says. “It’s even more exciting character-wise and actor-wise. We’ve got such an amazing cast of people.”

Resident Evil : Afterlife 3D | About the Production

In the first three chapters of the highly successful Resident Evil franchise, Alice, the nearly indestructible zombie fighter played by Milla Jovovich, finds herself in ever more desperate straits as she faces off against the sinister Umbrella Corporation and the murderous army of undead its technology has created. The fourth installment, Resident Evil: Afterlife, takes the series to an entirely new level, with more mindboggling stunts and effects than ever—this time in 3-D. In the words of producer Jeremy Bolt, “The movie has big guns, beautiful women, dogs with heads that explode, awesome landscapes. But most importantly, it has Milla, and Milla is on fire in this movie.”

Franchise creator Paul W. S. Anderson is back at the helm of Resident Evil: Afterlife, after taking a two-film hiatus from directing duties. “I missed directing the films,” says Anderson. “Resident Evil has always been a rich playground for me. I disappeared for a month playing the first two games and emerged from my hatch with a giant growth of beard.”

Anderson has taken a bold approach with the latest film, reinventing the franchise with bigger effects, epic vistas and terrifying new adversaries. “And we shot with the latest in 3-D technology, the cameras used to shoot Avatar,” he says. “It is really exciting to be on the cutting edge of a new technology.”

The director started his career shooting such futuristic thrillers as Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon, films he says he always envisioned in 3-D. “I wanted to immerse the audience in the action the way simulator rides like Back to the Future: The Ride did,” says Anderson. “I feel like a filmmaker who is making the jump from silent pictures to talking pictures. This kind of moment in cinema history, when the technology changes in such a radical way, only comes along every 30 or 40 years.” 

One of the most popular movies franchises of all times, the Resident Evil films are based on the blockbuster video games of the same name. Eight years after the premiere of the first film, audience demand remains strong. “From a commercial point of view, it made a lot of sense to make another one,” says Jeremy Bolt, Anderson’s longtime producing partner. “Each of the films has made substantially more money than the previous one. Along the way, the material has evolved in a very interesting way and Paul has matured as a filmmaker. When we began, we thought the movies were all about the special effects and the action. Now, Paul is much more interested in the emotional journey of the characters.”

Resident Evil: Afterlife picks up where the third film, Resident Evil: Extinction, left off. “Alice has managed to escape the clutches of the Umbrella Corporation yet again,” says producer Don Carmody. “She makes her way to Alaska in search of any possible survivors of the plague. The adventure continues as she is reunited with an old friend and they try to find out what happened to their fellow survivors.”

What they discover on their journey is a terrifyingly altered world, overrun by the T-virus. Few humans still survive and the undead have become stronger and much more intelligent. The site of most of the action is a nightmarish simulacrum of present-day Los Angeles. “Paul came up with a great take,” Bolt says. “In the last one, we had post-apocalyptic Las Vegas. This time we were working with the idea of Hollywood in a kind of hot nuclear winter.”

The setting was inspired by the forest fires that raged on the outskirts of Los Angeles as Anderson began work on the screenplay. “Even with all of our modern technology and thousands of firefighters, it still takes weeks and weeks to get these forest fires under control,” he observes. “It started me thinking—what would happen if there were no human beings left to fight these natural occurrences? The fires would sweep down off the hillsides and go straight through L.A., through Beverly Hills, down Sunset Boulevard, past the Hollywood sign and just keep going. That’s the Hollywood we portray in this movie. It’s a burning city, which I thought was very fresh imagery.”

In this unfamiliar setting, Alice must grapple with a new challenge: her own mortality. “Over the series of the first three movies, Alice developed superhuman powers as a result of a mutation caused by the T-Virus,” says Anderson. “When she confronted a few zombies, she could just make them explode. If she got bit, she would regenerate. I felt she’d reached the point where we didn’t feel scared for her any more. If we were going to make another movie, Alice had to lose her powers. We took her back to the place she was in the very first movie: a skilled warrior, but just a human being.” 

And just as Alice becomes more vulnerable, the zombies are evolving into ever more dangerous foes. “One of the strengths of the games that we’ve incorporated into the movie franchise is that the undead do evolve,” says Anderson. “They are fresh and more interesting and more exciting each time around, as well as becoming more difficult adversaries. The zombies in this movie are changing faster than humans can evolve. 

“You have to wonder if they will eventually out-evolve human beings and become a viable race of their own,” he continues. “With the world semi-decimated, who are the real inheritors of the Earth? Is it the last remnants of humanity or is it the creatures who want to eat the last remnants of humanity? You begin to wonder if the undead are the new world order and the human beings who remain are like the last of the dinosaurs.” 

Finding the hidden pockets of survivors has become increasingly difficult for Alice, who is constantly in the crosshairs of the Umbrella Corporation. “We often joke that if you see her coming, the first thing you should do is run,” says Anderson. “Even though she says, ‘I’m going to take care of you,’ chances are, by the end of the last reel, you’re going to be dead. It’s like the television show ‘Murder She Wrote.’ If that character comes to stay at your house for the weekend, you should just run away, because somebody’s going to get murdered.” 

But beyond the thrills and action, Resident Evil: Afterlife tells a compelling story that continues to resonate with audiences, says the director. “It has always encompassed bigger ideas, like the concept of the evil corporation being the true enemy,” says Anderson. “That is a slightly larger idea than a traditional horror or action-horror movie. Those bigger ideas are why the movies have thrived as long as they have done, and it’s why we’re on a fourth one.

“The human spirit burns very, very brightly in the Resident Evil movies,” he continues. “That’s the beacon of hope and that’s why Alice can continue to live and continue to fight. In the last film, we saw her wandering in the desert, very much a loner. She had become very burned-out and cynical. By the end of that movie, there’s a relationship building between her and another survivor, Claire Redfield, that is continued in this movie. It’s one of the most hopeful things in the franchise.” 

Resident Evil: Afterlife packs its share of surprises and continues the tradition of including a twist that audiences aren’t likely to see coming. “Just when the story is wrapped up nicely, when everything has been resolved, The Umbrella Corporation rears its evil head for one more surprise,” says producer Robert Kulzer. “It's a beautifully mounted movie that is going to knock your socks off with amazing action, beautiful people, flawlessly choreographed fight scenes and knockout visual effects. It’s going to be amazing.”

Resident Evil : Afterlife 3D | Synopsis

In a world ravaged by a virus that turns its victims into murderous zombies, the beautiful and deadly Alice (Milla Jovovich) continues her search for survivors in Resident Evil: Afterlife, the fourth riveting installment of the wildly successful Resident Evil film franchise. As her battle with the creators of the global plague reaches new heights, Alice finds herself trapped in a burned-out Los Angeles overrun by thousands of the undead, facing a threat she never anticipated.

Screen Gems, Davis Films/Impact Pictures and Constantin Film present Resident Evil: Afterlife, the first chapter of the saga to be shot and released in 3-D. Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter and Spencer Locke reprise their roles from Resident Evil: Extinction. New to the film franchise are Wentworth Miller (“Prison Break”), Shawn Roberts (Edge of Darkness), Boris Kodjoe (Surrogates),  Kim Coates (“Sons of Anarchy”), Sergio Peris-Mencheta (Love Ranch), Kasey Barnfield (BBC's “Grange Hill”) and Norman Yeung.

Resident Evil: Afterlife is written, directed and produced by Paul W. S. Anderson. Anderson also wrote, produced and directed the original Resident Evil, as well as writing and producing two earlier sequels, Resident Evil: Apocalypse and Resident Evil: Extinction. Producers also include Jeremy Bolt (Death Race), Robert Kulzer (Pandorum), Don Carmody (Resident Evil: Apocalypse), Bernd Eichinger (The Baader Meinhof Complex, Downfall), and Samuel Hadida (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus).  Martin Moszkowicz (Pandorum) and Victor Hadida (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus) are executive producers. Director of photography is Glen MacPherson, ASC, CSC (The Final Destination). Production designer is Arv Grewal (Jennifer’s Body, Lars and the Real Girl). Editor is Niven Howie (Resident Evil: Extinction, Death Race). The special effects makeup designer is Paul Jones (Silent Hill). Visual effects supervisor is Dennis Berardi (Resident Evil: Extinction, Death Race), with visual effects by Mr. X Inc. Original music is by tomandandy (Rules of Attraction). Costume designers are Denise Cronenberg (The Incredible Hulk).

The running time is 97 minutes.

Based on Capcom Entertainment’s massively popular “Resident Evil” video game series, the Resident Evil films are part of a global brand that also includes books, merchandising, DVD collections and more.

Resident Evil: Afterlife begins four years after the initial outbreak of the T-virus, designed by the Umbrella Corporation to combat aging and nerve-based diseases. The virus’ unfortunate side effect is its ability to reanimate dead cells, transforming its hosts into ravenous zombies. After sweeping the globe, the virus has turned the world into an unrecognizable nightmare where the rapidly evolving undead hunt the few remaining humans.

Picking up where the previous installment left off, Resident Evil: Afterlife finds Alice in Japan, armed with superhuman abilities and leading an army of her own clones against her longtime nemesis, Umbrella Chairman Albert Wesker. After leaving Wesker for dead in a showdown that destroys her army and strips her of her powers, Alice commandeers a two-seater airplane and flies to the frigid Alaskan wilderness. Her goal: to find survivors at the mysterious Arcadia—purportedly the only place on Earth not ravaged by the T-Virus.

But Arcadia, it turns out, is no promised land, and the only sign of life is her old comrade-in-arms Claire Redfield (Ali Larter), now suffering total amnesia. With Claire in tow, Alice’s search for answers leads her to the ruined city of Los Angeles, where she meets a handful of other survivors barricaded into a former prison, tenuously holding an army of the undead at bay. There she learns that Arcadia may be closer—but also more deadly—than she thought.

With Claire slowly recovering her memory and martial prowess, Alice leads her band of survivors on a harrowing rescue mission—and discovers something far more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.