Jessica Alba Blows Our Minds, Joss Whedon Horses Around--and Johnny Depp Loves Jack
by Team Megaplex* | Sept. 28, 2005
Alba Score: When James Cameron's Dark Angel was canceled in 2002, some feared we'd seen the last of its feisty young star Jessica Alba. Not to worry. Albaniacs got all they could want this year in Sin City, Fantastic Four and now Into the Blue, in which she plays a prime specimen of underwater life who swims into the path of hungry sharks and drug runners. At 24, she's just about the hottest actress in Hollywood...or the Bahamas, or Sin City, or anywhere. We caught her in Megaplex's net for a quick chat on pirate booty, swimsuits and, like, nerds.
We may be biased, but it seemed that the camera liked you a lot more than it liked Paul Walker.
I knew that the cameras were going there, just from experience. In all fairness, they shot the guys the same way they shot the girls. It's just that women are a bit more quiet about appreciating the underwater shots. Men are a bit more vocal, but there were some nice shots for us girls as well.
On your own time: bikini or one-piece?
Bikinis. I think they're more flattering.
If you found some really cool treasure in the ocean, would you even know what to do with it?
I think I'd save it and wouldn't tell anybody about it, because I'd feel like you have to give it to a museum or something. I'd save it and maybe pass it down to my kids and their kids. It'd be a really neat thing to keep.
After two comic-book movies, do you feel any nerdier?
I think I felt nerdier before I was accepted by very intelligent, dedicated comic-book fans. I was so much more of a nerd when I was in school and eating lunches by myself. I wasn't cool and never fit in with any group. I really love how full-on the dedicated fans are and how they don't care what people think and just follow what they like.
They'll be glad to hear that. Planning anything else for the fanboy legions?
I'm developing a videogame that's still in prototype mode. It's nonviolent--you can basically create your own character--and I want to make it racially diverse. And it's based off of a new thing that kids are doing, kind of an X-Games sport.
So, you like your pop culture...responsible. Kinda like the way you played Fantastic Four's Sue Storm.
I feel like there are enough comic-book characters out there who are kicking ass, have a sharp tongue and are sassy. And there are enough belly shirts and push-up bras out there. It was a relief for me, as somebody who wants to portray a good role model, to have somebody who has a brain.
You were on Flipper for a couple of seasons, and now this. Which are better costars: sharks or dolphins?
Dolphins. They're amazing. I love dolphins. I hate sharks. They're not warm and cuddly. You don't befriend them. No, I don't like sharks at all.
Dogs are warm and cuddly. You named yours Sid and Nancy, after the dead Sex Pistols junkie and the girlfriend he killed. Explain.
I got obsessed with the movie The Filth and the Fury toward the end of Dark Angel. I watched it nonstop for six months. I was in a very negative head space.
Do you get treated differently depending on your hair color?
I do notice with brown hair, when it's styled a certain way, I do get a lot more attention from much older men. Like, grandfather older men. I don't really know what it is, but it's funny.
Your next movie, Awake, sounds like a change of pace. It's about a guy (Hayden Christensen) who's anesthetic doesn't totally take during an operation.
It's a serious little indie movie with a good script. It'll be nice to go to work and not have to do anything physical, just act for once. I'm really looking forward to it!
www.eonline.com/Reviews/Movies/Megaplex/Column/050928.html'Blue' Stars Expose Bodies, Insecurities
Wed, Sep 28, 2005, 01:09 PM PT
By Daniel Fienberg
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com)- Someday, when they're old and they have wrinkles and things have begun to sag and bloat and atrophy, Jessica Alba and Paul Walker will be able to pull out the poster for "Into the Blue" as evidence of a bygone era when their abs alone could sell a movie. Now, however, is not that time.
"I don't even see that stuff," laughs Walter. "I was walking through the hallway and -- half-joking, half-serious -- I got off the elevator and the sign was right there and I turned it around."
Alba doesn't go as far as self-defacing, but she advises armchair oglers not to believe the hype.
"They airbrush in some movies on things like that all day, whether it was my body or somebody else's, it wouldn't really matter," she scoffs.
In their new film, Alba and Walker play plucky youngsters who live and work in the Bahamas soaking up rays, diving for treasure and battling with nefarious drug dealers for underwater supremacy. It's the kind of movie where actors have to put aside personal insecurities for the good of the text.
"I'm quite critical of my own appearance, but I had to just think the way the character did ... which is she doesn't care," Alba says. "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 would be weird. Unless she wore a one-piece. But young girls don't wear one pieces."
Thus, she was able to overcome her own worries for the sake of the children.
"At the end of the day, I just had to think that girls that have curves and aren't the skinniest things in the world are gonna feel more comfortable seeing me as the main character than somebody else," Alba says. "So hopefully, if I could do anything positive with it, I had to just think that maybe I would help young girls with their body image, maybe."
Walker agrees that he shaped his body to the demands of the character, eschewing the overbulked physique typical to Hollywood action heroes.
"I've been over 200 pounds before, I got up to 205 and I was repping 305 pounds, I mean, I was really strong," Walker explains. "But the second that I went to go surfing, I had no endurance. I couldn't do it. My shoulders were so big I couldn't get proper extension. Nothing was working right. When [director John Stockwell] told me that he wanted me to look like a surfer, like a real diver, I was like 'OK, good. That means I don't have to go to the gym.'"
Both actors know the pain and discomfort of being objectified with only their million dollar salaries as compensation.
"I hate it," Walker says. "Sometimes I wish my nose had been broken once or twice more ... a little more edge. People discount me, they call me 'pretty boy' and it pisses me off. I've always have a chip on my shoulder about that."
Alba had the added frustration of sharing scenes with the more outgoing Ashley Scott.
"She's really comfortable with her body. She would just throw on a bikini and walk around and meanwhile, every time the camera shut off, I was like covering up in a towel and hating my life and calling my mom," she says.
Scott, though, is having none of it.
"She's got a great bod. That's crazy," Scott says. "Everybody's got their thing. I've got my thing. She has hers. Everybody has their insecurities in certain areas of their bod. But that girl? Come on. She's a knockout. She doesn't have anything to worry about."
"Into the Blue" hits theaters on Friday, Sept. 30.
Here's the link,
www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---26878,00.html
MSN has an interview with Jessica here,
movies.msn.com/beacon/editorial1.aspx?ptid=a7d078a8-a59a-4b60-9b2a-3c3a2d56fee8>1=6940There are
possible F4 spoilers here as well.
Here's a link to an interview with Paul Walker about "Blue",
movies.msn.com/beacon/editorial1.aspx?ptid=59e991f1-1d1b-4d5f-bff1-02ddd787f1ac