Alba Anything But Invisible
July 12, 2005
Earlier this year, Jessica Alba lassoed her way through the critically
acclaimed film, "Sin City". Now in one of this summer's promised blockbusters,
she takes on the role of Sue Storm in the film adaptation of Marvel Comics
longest-running series, "Fantastic Four."
"I like how they use the powers and made them so human," Alba tells The Early
Show co-anchor Harry Smith. "That's why I was attracted to this comic book
because her abilities come from her emotions. It is not just, 'Oh, Yeah. She's
a superhero and becomes invisible and does force fields.' When she's pushed up
against the wall, she realizes she can do it by accident. It just feels more
natural."
The four characters: The Human Torch (Chris Evans), The Thing (Michael Chiklis),
The Invisible Girl (Jessica Alba), and Mr. Fantastic (Ioan Grufford) are sort of
a dysfunctional superhero family.
"They look at their abilities as it's a defect, essentially," Alba explains. "They
get hit with this cosmic storm. They were supposed to study the cosmic storm to
cure diseases. It hit them and pulled apart their DNA and put them back together.
They, all of a sudden, are superheroes. At first, she's like: 'I'm going invisible.
What's this about?'"
But Alba is anything but invisible. Her photo has been on the cover of almost
every magazine in America this year. Recalling her childhood, she says she has
come a long way.
"I didn't fit in. I had no friends. I was a dork," she says. "My dad was, like,
'Do you remember those girls that left you outside the house? They were supposed
to come and you were supposed to go trick-or-treating with them and they ditched
you. You were waiting out there till like 2 in the morning.' I was waiting out on
the lawn till 2 in the morning crying. That was my childhood."
Today, she says she has left all that behind and life is good. Being in the middle
of the fish bowl means being employed, she says.
"It's nice," she explains. "I spent so many nights crying to my dad and we would
go on these long walks. I would be like, 'Dad, I don't know if I can do this for
a living. What if they don't like me? What if I suck?' And he's like, 'Don't worry;
you stick in it; it will be OK. And you'll get jobs.' And so this is just real nice."
The hard work has paid off, she notes.
"Doing 'Dark Angel,' I worked so hard," she says. "I worked 90 hours a week. Didn't
sleep very much. I was very dedicated - 10 and-a-half months a year. I had no family
around me, no friends. I know what it is like to work really hard and just struggle
through it and get your name out there.
"I love to do this. This is what I've always wanted to do for a living. So it's
honestly just great, whether people embrace me, whether it's guys or girls. I like
that I'm doing more like Self magazine and Marie-Claire. I wanted to reach out to
women because I love strong women. I want to produce and enable women to direct
and write and star in more movies. That's my goal later on. Right now it is just
great to be working."
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