The billion dollar man

IT’S always a good start when you ask the interviewee how he is and he replies “Awesome”. Newcastle-born director Paul WS Anderson goes even further. “I couldn’t be happier,” he adds, with the proviso “the LA cellphone system being what it is there’s a likelihood we’ll get cut off”.

Happily we don’t during a 20-minute conversation that ranges over his love for the North-East, his leading lady on screen and in real life Milla Jovovich, and of course his latest movie Resident Evil: Retribution.

The latter is one reason for his good mood as the fifth film in the Resident Evil franchise has opened at number one in the US. “And number one globally,” points out Anderson, whose films have grossed over $1.1bn.

Having made three movies in as many years – The Three Musketeers and Resident Evil 4 being the others – he’s taking time off for family life. He and Jovovich, whom he met on the first Resident Evil film and has starred in all five, have a four-year-old daughter, Ever. “I’ve just dropped my daughter off at school,” he says. “The most important thing I’ve done this week is I had to go and buy Rice Krispies because they were making Rice Krispies bars.”

All very different from his usual day job, directing and producing action movies including Mortal Kombat, Alien vs Predator, Death Race 2000 and of course the $675m -grossing Resident Evil series with its video game connections.

THIS latest features the undead, the infected and many characters from previous episodes in a spectacular 3D science fiction fantasy with Jovovich as the all-action Alice, saviour of the world.

“I definitely feel pressure with each movie to deliver and the last movie did so well that the heat was on with this one. So I tried to make the biggest and best movie yet. The longer you go on the harder you have to work to get people back in.”

Resident Evil: Retribution hitting the top spot is even more agreeable as it beat the 3D re-issue of Disney animation Finding Nemo into second place. “Certainly, in America people thought Nemo was going to be the big fish in the pond,” he says.

“We very much take the Resident Evil franchise one movie at a time. This is a franchise I spend a huge amount of time over as I write and direct most of them. This is not a job for hire, not like a studio picture where they’re making one a year regardless.

“This is a franchise I revisit when I have a great idea for a movie. People involved in the franchise have been immensely passionate about what they’re doing.

“I do play video games so there’s a lot of commitment and like to feel that energy transfer to the film. This is the hallmark of Resident Evil and the secret of our success – and we don’t mess with that. We wait until everyone is passionate, even if it means waiting two or three years.”

He pays tribute to Jovovich’s work on the films. “She comes home covered in bruises because she does her own stunt work and wire work. Look at the climax of this new film – a huge fight on pack ice. It’s super-difficult and super-uncomfortable and you need people who are committed,” he says.

THEIR working relationship as director and actress has always been “exceptionally good”, he feels. “Milla is a very committed actress. I’ve seen her when she does work with other directors and when she commits to a film she gives her all.”

Work and home life merge into one. “One of the things Milla and I bonded about was a common love of what we do. We love movies in our personal life. We go and see a lot of movies.”

Their daughter has been on their movie set since she was very small. “She’s very much growing up on the set. She loves helping out and can do whatever she wants when she grows up. I’ll support her whatever she wants to do. For example, if she wants to work in the film industry it’s an industry I love and gives me a huge amount of enjoyment. It will be up to her.”

Moving to Hollywood was probably inevitable after his first film Shopping in 1994 featuring Jude Law and Sadie Frost in a story about joy-riding and ram-raiding among disaffected youth. He wasn’t inspired by the British films being made at the time, such as Remains Of The Day and My Beautiful Laundrette. “Pretty heavyweight art house stuff,” he calls them.

AS a teenager he looked more to American and European films. He didn’t see himself as a British director living here, although British cinema has changed and become more commercial since Shopping ran into trouble with censors who delayed giving it a certificate.

“Shopping was the first time a British movie had sexy young people with a rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack and a cool look. We got things like, ‘Jude Law is too good-looking to be an actor’. That’s what was wrong with the British film industry in those days – reviewers would say things like that.

“The movie was at Sundance Film Festival and getting a fantastic response. They didn’t think Jude Law was too good-looking, they thought he was sexy.

“I was getting a lot of love at Sundance and some cutting edge magazines in England really loved the film, but by the time it came out what was left was a very vitriolic press which didn’t like the film.”

So he was at Sundance getting pats on the back from people who worked in the studios and at the same time reading reviews in this country that said he had no future as a film-maker.

He chose to stay in the States despite not knowing anyone there.

“I didn’t come from a wealthy background and didn’t have any money. My whole director’s fee for Shopping went on the helicopter shots that opened the film. It wasn’t an easy decision to go to Los Angeles. I think there’s a twisted perception that the streets are paved with gold and littered with film directors. It’s a cut-throat industry.

“I’d made this one movie which wasn’t a big film and didn’t win an Oscar. It was a leap of faith, but I felt I had to try something. I liked LA – it was filled with movie posters and you could talk about the film industry all the time.”

Directing Mortal Kombat – the first successful film of a video game – made his name. Now, he doesn’t see himself as a US film-maker, but a global film-maker of movies often financed out of Europe, shot in Europe with European crews.

He retains his links with the North-East including the Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival with which his late father John Anderson was closely associated. Paul and his mother, Chrissie, created an award in 2007 for best young film-maker.

“I love the North-East and the landscape. Milla and I come and spend a lot of time in the North-East. She loves Lindisfarne and Holy Island,” says Anderson.

But he’s yet to find a film-making project to bring him back home. “It’s a question of finding an appropriate movie. Perhaps some kind of period picture, but nothing I have specifically planned right now.”

• Resident Evil: Retribution (15) is now showing in cinemas