Milla Jovovich recalled the ‘special moments’ she had while starring alongside Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element ahead of its 27th anniversary.
The 48-year-old actress, who firmly believes that “beauty is meaningless if you don’t know who you are,” gushed about her nearly 30-year acting career. PEOPLE‘I can’t believe I’m at that time, so many anniversaries!’
The Breathe star says she remembers everything about being on set in the past: “There are always, in our lives, some moments of brilliance among all the minutiae, among all the normal things, among all the failures and disappointments and everything the rest, the good, the bad, the normal, the ugly.’
She said co-starring Willis, 69, “would have to be one of those shining moments in my life, in my career as something that I really cared about as a human being and an actress.”
‘It was a special moment. He was a special character,’ she gushed.
Milla Jovovich recalled the ‘special moments’ she had while starring alongside Bruce Willis in The Fifth Element ahead of its 27th anniversary
The 48-year-old actress, who firmly believes that “beauty is meaningless if you don’t know who you are,” gushed about her nearly 30-year acting career, telling PEOPLE, “I can’t believe I’m at that point.” . How many anniversaries!’
The actress went on to share that she ended up spending quite a bit of time connecting with Willis’ children while they were filming the movie in 1996.
Because he was “quite a bit older than me, I was more friends with his kids and (his then-wife) Demi Moore, they would come visit me.”
In turn, she practically took care of Willis and Moore’s three daughters, Rumer, Scout and Tallulah.
“We would listen to music together and dance,” Milla recalled, “giving the parents ‘a little mom and dad time.'”
“I was like an older sister,” she said, calling the actor’s clan “a special family.”
The movie star gushed especially about the actor’s daughters, saying she was the closest to them.
The actress went on to share that she ended up spending quite a bit of time connecting with Willis’ children while they were filming the movie in 1996.
Because he was “quite a bit older than me, I was more friends with his kids and (his then-wife) Demi Moore, they would come visit me”; Willis and Moore seen with their daughters Scout and Rumer in 1996
In turn, she practically took care of Willis and Moore’s three daughters, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah; the family seen in 2001
“They are such great, wonderful girls, they have such a wonderful relationship with Demi, and I love that,” she gushed.
“I see them as a family unit and I think it’s really wonderful what they’ve created,” Jovovich said, noting that they were still in touch.
Chris Tucker, who played Ruby Rhode in the 1997 film, told the outlet that he had “very, very good times” with Willis and Jovovich while they were on set.
“Of course, I keep him in my prayers,” the 52-year-old actor said of Willis’ recent health battle that led to his retirement from acting.
Willis was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022 and was subsequently diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
“Seeing him was always wonderful. I will never forget. Working with him was a wonderful moment,” she concluded.
Willis’s longtime friend and director M. Night Shyamalan recently spoke with PEOPLE about how the actor’s family is coping with his diagnosis.
1997 will celebrate its 27th anniversary in May
Willis was diagnosed with aphasia in 2022, which led to his retirement from acting, and then frontotemporal dementia; seen in 2019
Shyamalan, 53, rose to fame in 1999 with his breakthrough film The Sixth Sense, starring Willis, and they would team up a year later in 2000’s Unbreakable.
More recently, Willis had a brief post-credits cameo as Unbreakable’s David Dunn in 2016’s Split, before reprising that role in 2019’s Glass.
‘He has a very loving family. “They’re doing the best they can,” Shyamalan said at a recent press event to promote his new film Trap, which hits theaters on August 9.
The director was referring to Willis’ wife of 15 years, Emma Hemming Willis, his daughters Mabel and Evelyn, and Bruce’s children with Demi Moore.
Willis was already a household name when he signed on to play Malcolm Crowe in Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, which took the director’s career to new heights.
The film, with its now iconic twist ending, was a box office success, grossing $293.4 million in the United States and $672.8 million worldwide on a budget of just $40 million.
Willis’s longtime friend and director M. Night Shyamalan recently spoke to PEOPLE about how the actor’s family is coping with his diagnosis.
‘He has a very loving family. They’re doing the best they can,’ Shyamalan said at a recent press event to promote his new film Trap, which hits theaters on August 9; the couple seen on the set of Unbreakable (2000)
Shyamalan and Willis’ second collaboration, 2000’s Unbreakable, was also a hit, grossing $95 million domestically and $248.1 million worldwide on a $75 million budget.
16 years later, fans were stunned when Willis returned in a post-credits cameo at the end of 2016’s Split, connecting that film to the events of Unbreakable.
Willis returned as Dunn alongside Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price, aka Mr. Glass, and James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, aka The Beast, in 2019’s Glass.
Split ended up grossing $278.5 million worldwide on a budget of just $9 million, while Glass earned $247 million worldwide on a budget of $20 million.