Jessica Alba

Interview By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

There has been no female actress more firmly established in young Hollywood's matinee idol status than Jessica Alba. After achieving incredible popularity as an action hero in James Cameron's critically-acclaimed cult hit Dark Angel, Alba has proven herself a major box-office draw with hits like the The Fantastic Four films and Sin City.

Jessica's latest role is in the new Hollywood remake of the critically-acclaimed Hong Kong horror film The Eye. She plays Sydney Wells, an accomplished blind violinist whose ability to see again comes with a price as she begins to see the supernatural.

While most actors tend to balk at doing horror movies, Alba claims her love for the genre and the character gave her enough motivation to do The Eye.

'Well, I love horror movies in general,' Jessica says, 'My favorites are Psycho, The Birds, Poltergeist, It, The Shining, the original Nightmare On Elm Street. I'm a fan and that's why I wanted to do something in this genre. I also love playing the least sort of glamorous, complex, gritty roles.'

Despite having already appeared in a thriller merely months ago with Awake, she states that the two are fairly different types of thrillers.

'Wow! They don't compare at all,' Alba insists, 'Definitely The Eye is way more scary. It's a horror movie, yeah, for sure. Awake was more of a psychological thriller and about someone who is dealing with surgery and trust and everyone in his life sort of betraying him.'

'And in this film, it's about a girl who has a corneal transplant and she gains the ability to see,' she continues, 'She takes on psychic abilities and the downer is that the girl sees death before it happens. And she doesn't understand because she's literally seeing for the first time, taking in the world. She was completely blind and now not only is she taking in the world for the first time, but she's seeing horrible things. So, yeah, definitely, The Eye's more scary. It's more of a ghost story than it is a gorefest.'

Jessica notes that she meticulously prepared herself in emulating the blindness of her character.

'I went to a blind orientation center in L.A. and one in New Mexico,' she recounts, 'I lived among people learning to deal with blindness, particularly in New Mexico, which was the one I spent the most time at. And I learned how to read Braille, walk with my cane, label everything in the house, just sort of learned how to exist as someone who has blindness. I did plan all those things to my home, so I could just practice those things at home with sleep shades on.'

'I also spent time with a girl that's been blind since she was two,' Alba adds, 'She's a vocalist, in her late twenties, speaks three different languages, traveled around Europe by herself, kind of stayed by herself, lived by herself, goes to Boston University, and converts all her textbooks to Braille. So she really was my inspiration, because she was so self-sufficient and so independent. I never knew anyone who was blind. Certainly any connotations I had with people who are blind, that they can't be self-sufficient and live like anybody else, were thrown out the window because she was quite extraordinary.'

However, Alba says the experience was literally an eye-opening one for her and claims that blindness is an affliction she wouldn't wish on anyone.

'To be honest, it was quite claustrophobic when I first started wearing the sleep shades and walking around and trying to exist normally,' she claims, 'I felt confined and trapped and I had a few freak-outs. It took a while for me to get used to it.'

'It definitely made me more appreciative of my sight and all of the abilities that I have, really,' Jessica adds, 'It put everything in perspective, especially when I was at the blind orientation center and sort of lived amongst these people who had blindness and they didn't know I was an actress learning a role or anything. They just thought I was another student. And they're all dealing with this tragic thing happening to them and I got to take my shades off and go home. And so, that was a huge reality check for me.'

Another thing the actress had to learn how to do for her character was to play the violin, which she claims was an even tougher challenge.

'The violin was definitely more difficult,' Alba believes, 'I play a soloist, so you have to be the best of the best. People that have been playing that instrument since they were three years old and go to camps their whole life practice eight hours a day still don't become soloists, they're just in the orchestra.'

'So that's was tough for me,' she continues, 'Because I wanted to come off as realistic and believable as possible in order for the audience to really take the journey with me in this movie. When I was playing the violin, because I was so horrible, everyone wore earplugs. Yeah, it made me feel so good. I'm like, 'But I'm playing the notes. It doesn't sound like Beethoven'!' (laughing).''

A common criticism with most Hollywood remakes of Asian films like The Ring or The Grudge is that they tend to be watered-down and inferior to the original. However, the actress offers plenty of good reason for fans of the original Eye, as well as of Asian horror in general to see this more Americanized version.

'It's definitely catered to an American audience, more Western way of thinking about ghosts,' Jessica believes, 'You're more familiar with the way of making ghost stories and these horror movies. It's definitely more a part of the culture and ghosts and spirits are more accepted and it's just based on a different mentality. In our Western culture, people think you are absolutely nuts if you believe in ghosts or if you see ghosts and, yeah, you're basically going insane. So we dealt with the ghosts in this film similar to that.'

'The Hong Kong version was more bitter than sweet and ours was definitely bittersweet,' she continues, 'But then on the other hand, people didn't think she was as nuts and a few people were on her side and went for the ride. And in our version, absolutely no one believes her and everyone thinks she completely lost it. So we're really playing up the insanity.'

Alba is also optimistic that her fans will also enjoy what she brings to the table acting-wise in The Eye.

'I think a lot of people have primarily seen me in popcorn movies,' Jessica says, 'Mind you, this one is as well, but this one is a more complex character. It's not as one-dimensional and sweet. She's definitely grounded in more of a reality and feels around not quite as glamorized as the other characters I've played.'

Those more glamorized characters she's played, coupled with her striking looks, have earned the now-26-year-old beauty legions of devoted fans. However, despite her understandable concerns of possibly being unfairly typecast as a mere sex kitten, Jessica says her confidence of her acting talent ultimately eases any discomfort with her public image.

'I never base anything on my appearance to be honest with you,' Alba believes, 'I don't think anybody would hire me just because of that. There's so many much, much cuter girls in L.A. that would do just about anything to get roles and if it was just about looks, they would be getting them. So I have to believe that I bring more to the table than that. And whether it's likeability or an appeal, or some people have seem me and it's more familiar because of Dark Angel and Fantastic Four, I don't try to judge that.'

'The one movie I definitely felt objectified in and was bizarre for me was Into The Blue because I didn't know we were going to be in bathing suits.' she adds, 'That was never the plan. They shot all the bathing suit scenes with the doubles before I even came to set the first day. And in the script, we were scuba-diving in wet suits and I said all wet suits for the whole movie. So that was the one movie where I felt like I got tricked, but I wasn't the only one. It was Paul, it was Scott Caan. It was actually Scott, the other girl in the film, so it's not like I was the only one in that movie. It just was what it was.'

Despite her attracting headlines about her pregnancy, Alba says her considerable box-office-success has enabled her greater opportunity to pursue projects that are closer to her more particular liking.

'I think maybe initially I'm probably going to do more character-driven roles, more indies for a little while with ensemble casts, smaller budgets, not necessarily the big box office tent-pole movies,' she says, 'There's a few independents that I have read and I've attached myself to, but everything's a little bit on hold because of the strike.'

'I personally want to have a bit more balance between the commercial movies and the indie movies that don't necessarily do as well and aren't necessarily going to make it in the theatres,' Jessica continues, 'I think it'll be fun to take more risks and more challenging roles.'

Jessica also believes her pregnancy has enabled the actress to reassess her personal priorities as well.

'I don't know, but I have to believe that when you have a child and when you have someone that needs you and needs your time, you kind of can't be self-centered anymore and you have to consider that any time you spend away from your child is valuable,' she believes. 'So I think I'll just be a bit more choosy and not work for two years straight (laughing).'

However, Alba says she doesn't plan on giving up on Hollywood completely though. She even has a new movie on the horizon coming out in June, which the actress was eager to share with us.

'I'm definitely coming out in a comedy, very broad, tent-pole comedy with Mike Myers called The Love Guru,' Jessica shares, 'It's his first original character since Austin Powers and it's absolutely hilarious (laughing). It's so funny. I play an owner of a hockey team and he's an all-around guru, but he's mostly in the area of love, loving yourself and fixing your love life.'

'My key hockey player's love life is totally screwed up and we're losing,' she continues, 'And everyone thinks our team is cursed because of me so I hire Mike Myers's character to fix my guy's love life and hopefully, we can win the Stanley Cup (laughing).'

She was also enthusiastic about working with comic actor Mike Myers.

'To me it was like a dream come true because he's the Peter Sellers of our generation in my field,' Alba claims, 'He's a genius and he's coined about every phrase in pop culture I think that we all know. And so, that was huge because I love comedy and if you're going to work with anybody in comedy, Mike is definitely someone to learn from.'

Wrapping things up, we asked Jessica to share with us what kind of role she longs to play the most and what filmmaker she'd most like to work with in the future.

'A role I've always wanted to do, I've had my eye out for an action movie,' she says, 'When I finished Dark Angel, it's been this long since I finished it and I haven't found a female-driven action film and I'm looking for it, so if anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way.'

'There's everyone I'm dying to work with, like I have nobody to work with (laughing),' Alba continues, 'There's David O. Russell to Baz Luhrmann to Meryl Streep to Daniel Day-Lewis to, I mean, the list goes on and on and on.'

In the interim, the actress also shared with us another role that she deeply aspires to achieving.

'I'm very passionate about producing definitely and I always wanted to,' Jessica claims, 'I think I just got out there and saturated as much as I can at every different genre and really played with as much as I can in this business and I'm kind of seeing where I fit in as an actor. You know, it really takes time. You can't work on four or five different movies in a row and expect to develop something and sit in meetings and really tailor it to what you think and want. Now I have time to do that.'