When Luc [Besson] and I first started talking about the hair for The Fifth Element and what the whole image was going to be, I immediately called my hairstylist friend Ward. This is back in the day when Ward was still really young and he had just invented the scissors. [laughs] I called Ward in because I said, ‘You can only have somebody from the fashion industry do this, and they have to be the best,’ and at that point, Ward was at the top of his game and young and hungry and ready to do it. We came up with the idea of this flame—Luc wanted a flame for the hair. Ward made a really interesting choice to make the roots blond, which looked amazing for a photograph, and because he comes from the fashion industry, he was like, ‘Yeah, for a picture, it’s great!’ but how do you keep it up for six months? My hair grows so fast, so every week they’d have to redo my roots. And, at one point, I think the hairdressers went out for a cigarette and left me sitting in the chair cooking underneath the hat and I felt my hair getting hot, but I was like, ‘They must know what they’re doing.’ Finally, I said, ‘Oh, girls!’ and they went, Gasp! I guess they had forgotten about me and when they took the thing off, my hair was just falling out in clumps and I was pulling it out and pulling it out and they had to make a complete wig. So, in the movie when you see Leeloo clean and dry at the apartment on the computer eating chicken, I’ve got a wig on pretty much from that point onward—we only got a few weeks of shooting in with the haircut, and thank God we got the beginning, which is glorious. On the balcony and on the ledge, that’s all my real hair, thank God because to me, that is the best part of Leeloo, those first twenty minutes that she’s in the movie.” - Milla Jovovich