We interviewed actress Milla Jovovich and director Paul W.S. Anderson on the occasion of the new Monster Hunter movie they have worked on.
Alice in Resident Evil, Leeloo in The Fifth Element and now Artemis in the Monster Hunter movie that is about to be released in theaters around the world. All of them (and many others) have something in common: having been played by Milla Jovovich. The Ukrainian is a woman of arms and a multifaceted actress with many years of experience behind her, who is now embarking on a new film adventure. This adaptation of the Capcom video game to the big screen is in charge of Paul W.S. Anderson, Jovovich’s husband and director of the Resident Evil series, Mortal Kombat, Alien vs. Predator and more tapes.
We have had the privilege of attending a virtual round table in order to interview the couple to tell us more about the Monster Hunter movie, which will finally be released in Spain on January 29 after having suffered several delays.
The world of Monster Hunter on the big screen
It is not easy to transform the concept of a video game to transfer it to a movie and even less if it is a saga with more than 15 years of history. However, Paul W.S. Anderson is considered one of the first directors in the world to embark on the adventure of adapting video games to the big screen, which is why he already has experience in this field: “I have always taken video games and their creators very seriously. It’s been 26 years since my first movie based on video games and since then I have kept the same idea, while other directors in Hollywood have not started to take video games seriously until recently “.
But why did you choose the Monster Hunter license out of all those currently available? To begin with, we can point to the fact that the director already had established ties with Capcom for years on the occasion of the Resident Evil saga, but if we look for a more personal reason we can ask him directly: “What attracted me the most about Monster Hunter since the beginning was his world, settings and creatures. I have to say that in each of the video game adaptations to the cinema that I have made I have been attracted to different things. For example, when I made Mortal Kombat, I wanted to make a great fight movie. With Resident Evil I wanted to convey the original inspirations that the games had from films by John Romero and others ”.
“I played the game for the first time 12 years ago, in Japan, when it was still not very well known in the West and not so many installments of the video game series had been released. I was really impressed with the fantastic world they had built, with those epic settings and amazingly designed creatures. From the first moment I felt that this entire universe could be transferred to the cinematographic realm. I’m personally a big fan of movies with great creatures like Jurassic Park or King Kong, so I thought this was a great opportunity to capture Monster Hunter monsters for the first time on the big screen. “
Regarding the way in which he has adapted this vast fictional world of video game to the film at hand, Anderson has opted for an approach in which he separates the version of the real world we know from that of Monster Hunter, so that newcomers to this universe they can feel that they are welcome: “It’s fine if you don’t know anything about the world of Monster Hunter, since the same thing happens to the protagonist of the story. See everything for the first time. On the other hand, if you are a fan of games and you know lore, you can be in luck since you will find 100% the world of Monster Hunter in the movie. I worked side by side with the creators of the saga to make sure that everything went well and was successful in terms of building creatures and the world, as well as ensuring fidelity to the mythology of the games “, explains the director .
Something that greatly helped the actors to get into the role were the remote and desert settings they went to shoot, which we have already seen in the trailers that have come out so far. As Milla explains: “The locations we shot were really challenging to shoot this movie. The good thing was that we were able to capture the essence of the games and their impressive landscapes through these settings because we were the first to record there; they had never been used for any other film production before. It also helped us get more into the role, since the extreme temperatures and being there filming made us feel more immersed in the action of the film. “
The character of Artemis, newcomer to a hostile world
If you know the work of Milla Jovovich you will know that she is not a novice in this of action movies. Whether you like the adaptations of Resident Evil to the cinema more or less, there is no doubt that the character of Alice deserves to join colleagues like Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield to take action. In this regard, Jovovich explains to us directly what changing course and saying goodbye to the zombie-killer protagonist has meant for her to go on to embody Artemis, another protagonist but in this case monster-killer:
“For me this movie is very special because I got to play a female Army Ranger. I come from a family in which, both from mother and father, there has always been a military presence and we had the joke that I had to join the army just to keep the family tradition active. So for me playing a soldier was something very close to my heart. Also, I got to meet a real ranger to talk to and interview her to find out how she survived the training and what prompted her to enlist. All of this was very inspiring for me ”.
She also details how she began to train and physically prepare for the role seven months before production began: “I would get up early every day and do my training to feel active and close to the ranger I met, with whom I ended up becoming friends. Of course, what I did was nowhere near the type of training and exercises she had to go through, as there are only a few female Rangers in the entire world and it is one of the most difficult sections in the entire army. In fact, it was only six years ago that women were allowed access in this branch. I think they are literally superheroes and it was a great privilege to be able to interpret it on the big screen ”.
If we compare Alice with Artemis we can see a long list of clear differences. As strong as she is, the Ranger is still human, something Alice gave up as her immunity to the T-Virus grew stronger and she thus developed supernatural powers: “I definitely feel that Artemis is a protagonist based on a real person, with the that you can empathize. I love that it is like that, as we were able to create the character based on the training and experiences of the female Ranger I mentioned to give her more credibility. On the contrary, Alice is a kind of anti-heroine and an iconic but less realistic character. “
The director of the film adds something to this when talking about the characters in the game world that inspired him to make Artemis from scratch: “I think Monster Hunter is a very interesting game because you can create your own character instead of playing with one. previously created. So it’s not like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider, who has a predetermined story and personality and is who she is. So that’s what we did with Artemis. We created a realistic character from our world who enters the world of Monster Hunter for the first time, as would happen if someone who has never played before took the controls of a game in the saga for the first time ”.
“Specifically, the latest installment in the series, Monster Hunter World, has many remarkable characters and some of them appear in the movie. In addition, the philosophy that “to kill a monster you need another monster” is also maintained, since in the games we must eliminate some creatures to build weapons and armor with them before going for a bigger one. So I knew there had to be a certain progression of that style. “
On a more personal note, Jovovich leaves us a message when it comes to playing strong leads on the big screen and what that means for her: “Growing up as a girl in the 80s, we didn’t have many female superheroines in the movies for us. serve as a reference. When I was 12 years old, I saw Alien for the first time on HBO, taking advantage of the fact that my parents had gone out to dinner, it was terrifying but at the same time seeing Sigourney Weaver being the protagonist and saving the world was really inspiring. I thought ‘I would love to be able to do that!’ When I did The Fifth Element I realized how much I liked being part of an action movie because I love playing these types of characters, entering alternate universes, doing training and action scenes … so of course I am. so proud and happy that viewers can see me on the big screen and enjoy something that I love to do. “
The monsters, the real protagonists of the film
What would Monster Hunter be without its monsters? Of course, we can find a good dose of them in the film but choosing which ones would appear from the entire wide catalog available was not easy. Anderson explains what criteria he followed to decide:
“It was difficult to choose the creatures that would appear in the film, since there is a great collection after 15 years since the saga was born. I relied on three principles to make the selection. The first was that there were some fan favorites that should be in the movie like the Rathalos. He has starred in many of the covers of the games and is like the superstar of the saga, so he had to be. I was also influenced by the Capcom team and their own monster preferences. Third, I chose some of the ones that I like the most. The rest of the creatures were chosen keeping in mind what their weaknesses and strengths are to fit them with the action scenes, since I did not want all the battles to be the same, but each one to have something unique “.
From what we have been able to see so far (and within the margins that we can talk about to date), there is no doubt that the monsters that appear in the film are accomplished and realistic, as well as easily recognizable. Milla delves a little more about how the filming process was: “Thanks to my work on films like The Fifth Element I have ended up developing the ability to visualize elements that are not really there during filming. These creatures that do not exist at the time of recording. But the great thing about the way Paul shot this movie is that he went to great lengths to make the location very realistic. He hired a team to prepare large sand cannons with which to fire whenever a monster like the Devil moved across the stage. In this way, the actors could feel that we were really being pushed by a gigantic monster and make everything more interactive and immersive ”.
But of course, to take down these great monsters you need weapons, which Milla is more than used to by now: “Over the years I have received a lot of weapons training for the different films I have made. This time I went to an army base on the outskirts of Los Angeles where they do some incredible war simulations and I was able to train with that system and with some soldiers. I have always liked to go to practice shooting galleries, so it was really interesting to return to this experience once more, since it is not something usual in my day to day ”.
Milla Jovovich and her relationship with video games
We recently learned that on the occasion of the launch of the film, a special event was organized for Monster Hunter Iceborne through which to obtain the skin of Milla Jovovich’s character to use in the game: “It is the first time that I have voiced a character from videogame and the truth is that it has been a very interesting experience even though it is strange to see yourself in this way ”, Jovovich details.
We do not want to conclude our meeting with Milla without asking her if she is still playing video games today, since we remember that in an interview years ago she mentioned that among her favorite titles were the Bloody Roar, something perhaps too bloody to play with his minor daughters: “When you have children, the issue of playing video games becomes complicated, since you have to try to control the time they spend playing and with applications such as Tik Tok. Even so, a while ago I played non-stop with my daughter The Sims ”. As for Monster Hunter specifically, he explains what he played when he was preparing for the role as he wanted to become familiar with the world and the fighting movements of the different types of weapons and characters.
Before finishing, we asked Milla which film of her entire career she would like to see continued through a sequel or a rebirth as a reboot. His response makes us smile wistfully: “I always thought that The Fifth Element must have had a sequel because it was a very funny and revolutionary movie for its time. And Leeloo was a very special character. It would have been nice to see the continuation of their adventures.
Although they are not Leeloo’s (or, who knows? Maybe the future will surprise us), we do not doubt that Milla will continue to extend her hand to accompany her on many more adventures since, as she hopes, she will continue ” kicking butt ”over many more years.
