Jessica
Alba
on
Becoming a Mermaid
by Lynn B.
 She’s
one of the hottest “it” girls in Hollywood this year. After
successful turns in Sin City and as an invisible action girl
in Fantastic Four, the petite actress goes Into the Blue
as the free-diving girlfriend to Paul Walker’s treasure hunter in
the undersea adventure flick.
By her own
admission, Jessica wanted to be a mermaid as a child and her stint in
the family-friendly TV show “The New Adventures of Flipper”
introduced her to a watery world that hooked her on scuba diving and allowed
her to make friends with the denizens of the deep. For “Blue”,
the actress had to learn to hold her breath for as long as possible, swim
for hours in a bikini and handle sharks! All the sharks you’ll see
in the film are real! No CGI Jaws in this flick.
Interesting
tidbit that has nothing to do with water or sharks: We learned that Jessica
isn’t sure about ever becoming a mom but she’s starting her
own baby clothes line since she can’t find anything very cute when
buying for all her pregnant gal pals.
We caught
up with the busy actress in L.A. The recently blonde Jessica is back to
her long, chestnut locks with auburn highlights up in a pony tail today
and, as she entered the room for our talk, she was frowning and chatting
very seriously on her cell phone.
Jessica: I'm
sorry. I'm giving my family advice on unhealthy relationships right now.
AGW: Are you
an expert on the subject matter?
Jessica: [smiling]
No. I'm not. I mean, I give my opinion. Whether they take it or not is
really up to them. But I'm a really strong believer in equal relationships
and so when I see an unbalance in power I kind of freak especially with
my little female cousins. I'm the oldest of fifteen cousins.
If they have any questions about school or about work or about anything
- I tell them all that they should not be actors. I deal with everything
on a heightened level and it seems like I've crammed a lot of life into
a short period of time. I tend to give the best advice that I can give.
AGW: What
are the most asked questions?
Jessica: Oh
it’s more about school and work, or like, 'Mom won't let me do this.
Dad says this.' I encourage them to go to school, and a lot of them just
want to stay at home and go to community college and figure out what they're
going to do next. I'm like, 'Get on with your life. Make some decisions.
Get your [fanny] to school [college] and move out.' I just think that
that's when they really find out who they are as people instead of getting
pregnant while at home and in community college.
AGW: Good
advice. How is your family reacting to you being more and more famous?
Jessica: To
be honest with you, it kind of affected them during 'Dark Angel,' and
I was up in Canada. There were billboards and I was in everyone's house
literally. I mean, people escape and go to the movies, but I was literally
on people's televisions with that program. So that's sort of when it affected
them the most. Now they are kind of used to it. My mom didn't know what
the paparazzi were like until about a month ago and at first she was like,
'Well, babe, that's what happens when you get famous.' And then after
about an hour of it she was like, 'I'm going to call the police. This
is out of control.'
After telling
Jessica that we think it’s cool that she’s willing to help
her young cousins, we note that she looks like she’s ready for a
corporate board meeting today; gray, enclosed-toe heels, trendy gray tweed
suit with white cammi, tiny pearl earrings and tons of long pearl necklaces.
Maybe an attempt to squash her hot girl image? Let’s get that out
of the way….
AGW: When
did you first realize that you looked good in a bikini?
Jessica: [laughs]
I never did to be honest with you and I still don't. I'm quite critical
of my own appearance, but I had to just think the way that the character
did, to be honest with you. She just doesn't care. She's not sitting there
looking at her body. She's just working and she lives in the Bahamas and
if she didn't wear a bikini it'd be weird unless she wore a one piece,
but young girls don't wear one pieces.
AGW: What
was the training for this film like and how did you start feeling comfortable
in the water?
Jessica: I'm
really comfortable in the water and so that really wasn't a problem. I've
been swimming since before I knew how to walk because my mom was a lifeguard
in Mississippi when I was baby. She taught me to swim because she was
always so nervous that I would fall into the pool and not know how to
swim. At the end of the day I just had to think that girls who have curves
and aren't the skinniest things in the world are going to feel more comfortable
seeing me as the main character than someone else. So hopefully if I can
do anything positive with it I had to just think that maybe I would help
young girls with their body image.
AGW: Do you
do anything to keep up your body?
Jessica: My
trainer has been with me since I was seventeen. You get run down and get
sick when you do movies because of the long hours and everything and she
just helps me to stay healthy. She gives me vitamins and she makes me
eat right, and we do workouts and on this movie, because it was so physical,
we did more stretching and yoga and stuff like that.
AGW: We heard
that the stunt people were surprised that you were such a great swimmer.
Jessica: Yeah.
I loved the stunt people. I feel more comfortable with stunt people than
with actors because actors don't know what they're doing all the time
especially when you're doing physical stuff. I was trained as a stunt
person when I did 'Dark Angel' and they were just more water savvy than
the other actors. They knew what was going on and about currents and everything.
So they just made me feel more comfortable and especially Paul's double.
He was amazing. He was such a fast swimmer and I would just hold onto
his shoulder, and the hardest thing was just trying to hold my breath
as long as him because that's what he does.
AGW: Okay,
you are petting sharks in this movie. How scary was that?
Jessica: Very.
Once instance in particular the sharks mouth was open and was sort of
coming at me and nobody was warning me. The camera operator was just filming
it and no one was telling me from behind, and I just saw in my peripheral
vision, because of my mask, that a shark’s mouth was coming towards
me and so I just whacked at it and hit it away. What else are you going
to do? And then after that happened I was really paranoid about the sharks
getting too close to me. So any time one came even this close to me I
would just kind of shove it away because their noses are very sensitive
and they're not the smartest animals in the world. If it bumps into something
it's going to deflect it in the opposite direction.
AGW: Whoa!
I don’t know if I would be that brave. There was an underwater safety
crew though, right?
Jessica: To
be honest with you that's where I learned how to dive, and that's how
I learned how to do underwater stuff and really trust the underwater safety
people because we're under forty feet and then they take your mask off
or they take your regulator out of your mouth and you can't go to the
top because your lungs will explode because you're on assisted air.
AGW: Scary!
So it’s all about trust then?
Jessica: You
have to trust that when you run out of air that you're going to find someone,
and mind you, these people are far away from us because the cameras are
so wide. So if I'm here, the camera is like double the size of this room
away from me and the guy is on the other side of the camera and so I have
to trust that when I do this [indicates she’s out of air] someone
is going to give me air because I can't go to the top. So it just sort
of helped me relax with the underwater safety people that were there and
know that I wasn't going to drown.
AGW: What
is your holding your breath record so far?
Jessica: I
think that by the end of the movie they were doing this close-up shot
of us and I think that I did one take that was a minute and twenty seconds.
I swam down into the [submerged] plane from the surface and went all the
way to the back of the plane and came all the way back through and came
back up and I stopped and did stuff inside the plane where they had cameras
set up.
AGW: Paul
told us that the most dangerous sharks were the smaller ones who would
bump into you. True for you?
Jessica: I
wouldn't let them bump into me, but he was more like into letting them
get close to him. I wasn't. I was not happy with that at all. I would
push them away before they even got close. It's like baby snakes. They
don't know to just let out a piece of the venom. They let out all of the
venom and it's the same with little baby sharks. They're just trying to
get food and whatever is in the way they'll just bite at and will nudge
you. They are more playful and a little bit more wild.
 AGW:
Really important question. Doesn’t make-up wash off in water?
Jessica: There
was no makeup. None of us had makeup on. I mean, thank God I had pigment.
My dad is good for the dark skin gene and I got very, very dark. Paul
[Walker] got really, really dark and so did Scott [Caan]. I think that
Ashley [Scott] was the only one. She would sort of get a little bit dark
and then have to wear a lot of sunscreen.
AGW: At one
point in the movie, I thought I saw a big bruise on the front of your
leg. Did I?
Jessica: Yeah
I forgot how that happened. I had a really big bruise and because of the
underwater thing, you can't really wear makeup underwater, I think that
they tried to put something on it, but it just came off. I don't remember
though. I get bruises all the time.
AGW: Paul
got hurt pretty badly while filming. Did you?
Jessica: No.
He totally scarred his head. It was bad, and it was on the first day of
shooting.
AGW: So you
and Paul met to discuss another film a while back?
Jessica: It
was going to be a remake of ‘An Officer and a Gentleman' and it
was this really amazing director and we all sat down and had dinner actually.
We got along really well. It was like a brother/sister kind of thing.
It was fun.
AGW: So who
is the better diver? You or your “brother” Paul?
Jessica: You
have to be able to equalize and Paul couldn't equalize that well when
he was going down. Maybe he can do it better now. Because he's a surfer,
he had this ear problem, but at the end, after all this diving, we all
had sinus problems through the whole movie. So I think that there is one
scene in particular where I had a bad sinus cold or something and my voice
is really deep [Laughs]. I had a cold voice.
AGW: So feeling
more like bro and sis, how was doing a love scene together? Weird?
Jessica: Well,
it wasn't really a love scene. I think that what sold the relationship
was their obsession for each other and how young they were and new the
relationship was. Then all of a sudden they are hit with this reality
where he's choosing money and fame and all of this other stuff and he's
getting sidetracked. That's kind of the point. They've been together for
two years and she's like, 'Okay. Now what?' This other thing seemed more
appealing to him.
AGW: Sensitive
question. Scott’s character says something like “let the Mexican
do it” when referring to you. Did that tick you off? Was it considered
a racial slur?
Jessica: [getting
thoughtful] I was pretty irritated, and Scott grew up in Southern California
and he actually, I think, says that he can speak a little bit of Spanish
which is more Spanish than I can speak. It wasn't spoken in my house at
all and my father doesn't speak it at all. But I was a bit irritated,
and when you are the only half minority, there is nothing that you can
really say because everyone else is white.
AGW: So he
ad-libbed it. Could you have asked to have the line taken out?
Jessica: I
told him, 'I can't believe that you said that.' I called him a jerk and
a couple of other things, but of course what makes the film is that. I
didn't appreciate that too much, but growing up and not really fitting
in as a Latin or a white or an anything, no one ever accepted me and so
I kind of get the brunt of all those weird, racial slurs.
AGW: You and
co-star Ashley Scott have both been superheroes. Who would win in a smackdown
between the two of you?
Jessica: [laughing]
Oh, I wouldn't compare Ashley and I. I've had a lot more training than
she has. But she is awesome. She did 'Birds of Prey' and she did 'Dark
Angel.' I really appreciated, as a woman, first of all, having another
girl there to be girlie with because we were the only girls there with
all boys. The crew was also all boys. Also, she's just really comfortable
with her body and so that's another thing that helped me. She would throw
a bikini on and walk around. Meanwhile, every time the camera shut off
I was covering myself in a towel and hating my life and calling my mom
and going, 'I can't do this. I hate this movie.'
AGW: You have
a scene in which you are handcuffed to a huge guy but you’re dragging
him around. How hard was that?
Jessica: He
was huge. Huge. He's like six five. No joke. Six five. My back hurt. My
legs hurt. Actually, now I remember where I got the bruise. I was like
running away from the guy and I tripped over the railing on the way up.
I fall down right before I kick him in his face. By the way, none of that
stuff was in the original script. In the original script it was like me
trapped under the boat, passed out and handcuffed to the dead guy and
then Paul comes and saves the day. And I was like, 'Now, you guys did
get me to play the girl and I think that women want to see a girl kick
[fanny]' [We totally agree] So I talked to the writer and talked to [director]
John [Stockwell] and everyone was cool with it. And then I think that
it made for a more interesting ending.
AGW: What
is happening with the next Fantastic Four movie and your character Sue
Storm?
Jessica: I know what the first twenty minutes are going to be of the movie.
It's really cool, but yeah, they're getting married. Maybe I'm giving
away too much, but yeah.
AGW: What
do you think about all the junk written about you lately in the tabloids?
Jessica: Oh,
it's junk. All of it. It's terrible. It's terrible if it affects anyone
else in my life, but none of it is true. I was so irritated, like, I go
to have a peaceful vacation and we're not doing anything wrong and they
make it like I'm being inappropriate and public with my boyfriend. It's
just like, 'What?' It's just because they have an angle of a picture,
they make this whole story and it makes my parents think that I'm doing
something that I'm not which is all that really matters because I could
care less what anyone else thinks.
AGW: Do you
ever see yourself transforming into a more plain Jane like what Charlize
Theron did in Monster?
Jessica: Absolutely.
I think that I never go after a role because it's going to be hot or beautiful
or anything. I'm totally just about the character. Sue Storm [Fantastic
Four] couldn't have been more conservative and nerdy and like a little
corny and soft in her opinions about things. Even when she was making
a statement she was still very prim and proper and I loved that about
her. So that was really why I did a character like Sue Storm and that's
kind of what I go for in choosing movies. It's never about whether or
not I look good. It would be amazing to dive into a character like Charlize
did and transform yourself entirely, or like 'Bridget Jones' and just
transform everything. That’s the whole point of acting.
AGW: What
is the next film you are going to do?
Jessica: It's
called Awake. It's with Sigourney Weaver and Hayden Christensen.
It's an independent movie. It's not a big studio film.
AGW: Okay,
what music would you like to listen to now?
Jessica: Damien
Rice and Coldplay.
AGW: Into
the Blue seems like it was a tough shoot. Were there moments when
you said to yourself ‘what am I doing here’?
Jessica: Absolutely.
Certainly. After the sharks and the cold water and the seasickness. I
mean, it's a beautiful movie and then we watched dailies and I was like,
'Oh, okay. This is why I'm doing it.' I knew that it was going to be a
beautiful, suspenseful movie and that's what it is. It's a popcorn movie
and it's fun. I know that even with 'Blue Crush,' the underwater photography
was not nearly as gorgeous as it is in this movie. Sixty percent of the
movie it seems like takes place under the water, and I think that it's
rare and cool. I like it.
Pictures courtesty
of and copyright MGM/Columbia Pictures 2005
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