An Interview With Jessica Alba

This past year, Jessica Alba has already walked the pulp-noir streets of Sin City and displayed powers of invisibility in Fantastic Four. Pulling a 2005 hat-trick, the 24-year-old actress abandons comic book themed films for a more reality based role…a shark wrangling treasure hunter. The film, called Into the Blue, also stars Paul Walker and Scott Caan and opens today. In this interview, Alba discusses pimp handing sharks, acting as muse to comic book legend Frank Miller, and having recurring nightmares of, literally, being trapped in her own skin.

You had some pretty steamy scenes with Paul Walker. What was it like working with him?

Jessica Alba: He’s a sexy guy so I think any scene he’s in is just sort of nominated as sexy. Yeah, I mean he’s a lovely guy. He’s down to earth. He’s a guy’s guy. I thought he was going to be a little bit more effeminate and precious diva like the rest of the male actors I usually work with. But he wasn’t. He was like a guy’s guy. He loves fishing and boating and surfing and competing with Scott [Caan] at any waking moment because they just, like, fought all the time like brothers and compete. They were very competitive about everything. So it was fun to sort of interact with them.

They seemed to rub skin together more than you and Paul did.

Jessica Alba: I’m with you. (laughs) I’m with you. There was actually this one sequence that, I hope it makes it to the DVD, but it didn’t make it to the movie. Obviously, it’s so homoerotic. It was like Scott and Paul doing this swim, and then they kind of like did it on top of each other. And they’re underwater and they have this really pretty music and stuff. It was very funny. So I had to tease them about that.

Did they let you touch the sharks in the Bahamas?

Jessica Alba: Did they let me? (laughs) No, I mean sharks are pretty terrifying animals and they’re not very bright and they’re pretty much blind. They don’t see you and see the difference between you and a fish, which is why so many people get attacked. So, yeah I did hit a couple of them to push them out of the way because, you know, they’re dumb. I never wanted them to mistake me for a fish. So if they came within arm’s length, I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, they’re just going to swim right by.” I would just be like, (swatting an imaginary ocean dwelling predator) “Get away!” I was just constantly like pushing them away from me.

You would actually hit them?

Jessica Alba: Well, yeah. Yeah. Or they would hit me. See Paul was bunked by them and he’d come out of the water and he’d have these raspberries all over his body from, because their skin is like sand, from them like slashing. But he’s fearless, he doesn’t mind the shark thing.

Did you learn how to free dive?

Jessica Alba: I did. I did, yeah. I went to the Caymans and they have this facility there where they teach people how to free dive. And I just went on my own with a couple of friends and I learned how to free dive and I sort of brushed up on all my scuba diving and I was kind of a little dive bum for a couple of weeks.

Playing a shark handler what did you learn about the animals for the role?

Jessica Alba: I went and I walked around with the actual shark wrangler at the Atlantis who does the job that I was supposed to do. I just went around with her and picked her brain about, “So, any close calls? Why sharks?” You know just trying to figure out why, because she’s a little petite Bahamian woman, and she’s like the main, head shark wrangler. She says, you know, they’ve gone in the middle of the ocean, and swoop them up, and put them in a tank. Usually they’re babies and they grow in the tank, and once they get to a certain size they have to let them out again. They regulate on how many they can have in there. The other divers that are swimming with the sharks and how dangerous that is. There’s people cleaning the shark tanks with the hammerheads and the tiger sharks and the bull sharks. These are known biters. (laughs) I was like, “How do you get that guy to get in there to clean the window? That must suck, that job. Glad I don’t have to do it.”

Did you take this movie because of, or despite the physical demands? You never seem to give yourself a break.

Jessica Alba: You know, I’m with you on that. What’s funny is I did the movie after Honey. So it’s like I did Honey, Into the Blue, Sin City, Fantastic Four. The movies came out Sin City, Fantastic Four, Into the Blue just out of random coincidence. I actually thought, in my really delusional mind during the Honey press tour, that I was going to be paid to hang out in the Bahamas and scuba dive for four months. I was like, “That’s not a bad job!” So, then I realized we’re shooting in the winter with wild sharks in every single scene that’s in the water. They turn the water and they got sharks to be around. Didn’t know that. And I thought we were in wet suits. Because if we’re real divers we’d be wearing wet suits. But they were like, “It’s the summer.” I was like, “Oh. In the movie it’s the summer? Because right now it’s cold.” And they were like, “No no. In the movie it’s the summer and we already shot footage with the doubles so you have to match that stuff.” And I was like, “Oh, okay. So I just don’t have a choice. Alright. Well.” It became a different thing once we did it. But then, the essence of the movie, and why I wanted to do it… it was a page turner. I read the script in forty-five minutes. I was like at the edge of my seat the entire time, seeing what’s going to happen next. And I knew it was going to be gorgeous.

What did you learn about real life treasure hunting during the making of the film?

Jessica Alba: I learned that it really exists. There are real treasure hunters out there. It’s a big ocean and there’s been lots of storms since that happened and anything underneath gets buried. I mean, the ocean is so vast. There’s no way to truly chart where anything is and that’s why there’s so much still out there.

Did the film try to update or modernize that by adding the subplot with the drug cartel?

Jessica Alba: I think they did. I think that’s the way that they are trying to relate it to what’s really happening because that’s real. That’s happening now all over the Caribbean. But there are still treasure hunters out there and there are people like Paul’s character who want nothing more in life than to discover it.

With all the negative buzz on the internet, were you surprised that Fantastic Four did as well as it did?

Jessica Alba: No! Because any negative buzz anybody had, they knew nothing about the comic book. They were comparing it to Batman. It’s not dark. It’s a fun, family comic book. That’s the charm of it. It doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s a little campy. That’s why kids can read it and parents can read it and everybody can get something from it. I know most of the reviews, they wanted it to be another movie. They didn’t understand why the Fantastic Four was successful and they certainly didn’t know anything about the comic book.

Are they talking about sequels yet?

Jessica Alba: Yeah, they are. They are. They’re not telling me anything about them but I heard through the grapevine that they’re talking about it.

You did back to back comic book movies. Do you read them?

Jessica Alba: No, I don’t. Isn’t that weird? I did read them obviously when I got the jobs.

What’d you think of the Sin City comic books?

Jessica Alba: I thought they were profound and I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t read them before. That I was missing out on the graphic novel world. I mean, it’s just so…graphic. (laughs) My God! I don’t think my mind could ever go where Frank Miller’s mind goes. And having his illustrations with his dialogue, it all has this pace. It’s very old-school and noir-ish. It’s pretty incredible.

Rumor is you’ve inspired a few new yarns in Sin City?

Jessica Alba: Frank [Miller, creator/co-director] is like a big Hollywood star now. He’s like being offered all these things to direct and write. I had dinner with him and he had some pretty damn cool ideas about Nancy and I think he’s going to write something for me if he is. I mean he said he was. Who knows?

Does that mean he’ll write directly for the film or would be a graphic novel first?

Jessica Alba: He might do it as a graphic novel first and then release it simultaneously. I don’t know.

Having worked with both men on the same shoot, how would you compare the directorial approaches of Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez?

Jessica Alba: [Frank] attaches everything emotionally to the back-story of the character and why she did, he did, and what they do and why they‘re saying what they‘re saying and what that means. So he always approaches everything from a very emotional place. Robert would do that, but then be like, “I need you to cry out of that eye because that’s the one that we have in the angle and it matches the drawing.” I’m like, (mock panic attack) “Okay, how do I cry out of my right eye? How do I do that? That’s insane! I’m just trying to concentrate on my lines and Bruce and not get freaked out here and I’m crying out of my right eye. How do you do that?” And then Frank would be like, “You know, Nancy feels…” and then he would tell me the back-story. So then I somehow figured out how to cry out of the right eye. But it was a nice marriage.

Of the films that you’ve done which do you consider the most arduous?

Jessica Alba: This one (Into the Blue). For sure. It was just, I never knew what scene I was shooting any day. Everything was based off the weather. So, it’s like, “Oh, today is partly cloudy.” Well, the scene that we did that was partly cloudy was this scene. So then we should do that same day. Then we had to go and shoot that but then the sun would clear out by the time we got out to the middle of the ocean and then it would get rocky. So then we had to go under the water, but then under the water was all murky. So then we had to go on land but we already shot all the on land scenes. So then we had to fake the on lands- I mean it was unbelievable what we went through everyday doing a movie on the water. You really are a slave to what mother nature wants at that moment in time.

In the film you’re very self sufficient. Never depending entirely on your boyfriend through the rough spots but handling your own. How much of that was already in the script and how much came from your input?

Jessica Alba: The end of the movie was Paul comes in and says, “Sam, it’s true. The story!” and then I pass out. I wake up to Paul un-cuffing me and carrying me out of the boat. I said to John [Stockwell, director] and the writer Matt [Johnson], I was like, “You know, I can do action. I think I’m probably the most experienced person in doing action so, what if we talked to the stunt coordinator and, what if we just kind of figured something out for me to do. I mean, girls don’t really want to see someone get rescued at the end of the movie. That happens all the time. You got me. I’m good at that stuff.” So I literally came up with the action sequence with the stunt guy, and Matt wrote it and they had an action director come in and clean up all of that stuff. So that was me. Before she was passed out, waiting for Paul to come save her.

Can you talk a little bit about Awake, your next project with Hayden Christensen?

Jessica Alba: It’s about anesthetic awareness which is what happens when you go under for surgery, get put under for anesthesia and they don’t give you enough for your body weight. It’s literally like a drop or two too little that makes this thing happen. Basically you’re body is asleep, like it should be, but your mind is awake. So you hear and you can feel the entire surgery. The whole time you can’t say anything. You can’t talk. You can’t move. You can’t cry. You can’t do anything. You just have to suffer through it until it wears off. It happens to people. It’s like this huge epidemic that I didn’t know about. When I heard this I was like, “Nooo!” I was having dreams about it and freaking out and I would have all these weird visuals of what it must be like in your mind, knowing that you had to suffer through that and knowing you were there for hours of pain. Where you had to go. Where’s your happy place? Where would you go and what does that mean? Would you rather just die? There is no happy place. You can’t escape that you’re there. So Hayden Christensen’s character goes through this whole thing. My character, we’re engaged for six months. We’ve been together for a year and when he gets a call that he got a heart, it’s available and he can have this heart transplant, he’s like, I’m going to do something for myself. We’re going to get married because our relationship he’s been keeping a secret from his mother. So then the mother, in the waiting room with me, finds out that we got married and I’m her assistant. And he’s like a billionaire. So she doesn’t trust my character and thinks it’s weird She’s always been coddling him his whole life and she doesn’t want to let go. Then while he’s in surgery, he has flashbacks to their relationship and how it started and why it means so much. She’s the reason why he lives through this terrifying experience.