Resident Evil’s Milla Jovovich and Paul W.S. Anderson reflect on zombies and the Final Chapter

“I think over the years, Paul has learned what I liked. The first couple of movies were more difficult because we didn’t know each other. [There] were a lot of arguments,” the actress says, referring to Paul W. S. Anderson, 51, who directed four of the Resident Evil episodes, and scripted and produced all six of them.

“Especially on the first one. I was about to leave – completely – because he changed the script and marginalised me,” Jovovich continues. “I got to Germany, read the new script, and I said [to him], ‘No way! I’m on the first flight home if you don’t come right now; we’re going to sit down and change everything.’ So that was, I think, when he fell in love with me.”

Jovovich, 41, bursts into laughter, a gratified expression on her face during the interview, conducted on a recent morning in Hong Kong.

For all the critical mauling it has received since day one, the Resident Evil franchise – with this month’s release of a sixth and presumed final chapter – has become the best-selling film series based on video games.

And although bleak, with, gore, violence and an apocalyptic setting, the Resident Evil films have become a family project for its director and star: Anderson and Jovovich welcomed their first child, Ever Gabo Anderson, in 2007, married in 2009, and then had a second daughter in 2015. Keeping it in the family, the new film stars nine-year-old Ever as the younger Alice and the Red Queen – the antagonistic artificial intelligence system that started the zombie apocalypse to wipe out humanity.