Body Of Evidence

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Body Of Evidence

As the new Fantastic Four movie hits Irish screens, Paul Byrne talks to the rather fetching Jessica Alba about, well, being rather fetching. Amongst other things…

It’s hard to take Jessica Alba seriously when she says that she wants to produce movies with empowering female roles. Here’s a very fine looking woman who’s only notable trophy so far for her sterling on-screen work is MTV’s much-sought-after ‘Sexiest Performance’ Golden Tub of Popcorn, for playing a superhot, lasoo-toting stripper in Robert Rodriguez’s 2005 offering ‘Sin City’.

Her other work? A superhot music video instructor in 2003’s ‘Honey’, a superhot deep sea diver in 2005’s ‘Into The Blue’, and, most famously of all, the superhot Sue Storm – aka The Invisible Woman - in 2005’s ‘Fantastic Four’. The more eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted a pattern here. “Hey, I know what you’re saying,” smiles the lovely Ms. Alba when I start joining the dots, “but that’s something a lot of people in Hollywood have to deal with. You know, prove themselves to be more than just a pretty face, or a beefcake guy, or whatever. I’m okay with that. It’s early days, and I’ve got a lot of growing to do, a lot of learning. For now, I’ll play the parts that best suit me, but, you know, I’m hoping that, as I get older, and I get better at this job, the roles will become more and more varied. Come back to me in sixty years time, when I’m playing the killer grandmother, and then we’ll talk…”

Good answer. Then again, it should hardly be all that surprising, given that Jessica Alba has been slobbered over by at least half the population out there for seven years now, ever since James Cameron plucked her from obscurity to be the lead in his much-hyped TV series, ‘Dark Angel’. Alba played Max Guevera for just two years, but it was enough for the young Pomona, California actress to burn her image into a million or so teenage boys’ brains. So, she knows where she’s coming from. And where she’s headed.

Making her big-screen lead debut with the insipid ‘Honey’ may have stalled Alba’s rise a little, but her eye-popping, fly-busting turn as sweet Nancy Callahan in ‘Sin City’, and her first bona-fide blockbuster, ‘Fantastic Four’, both came out in 2005. By the end of that year, Alba was on just about every magazine cover. Except Ireland’s Own. “Hey, there’s still time,” she says. “I’m sure if I send Ireland’s Own the right pic, they’ll put me on the cover.” Do you have any bad drawings of yourself in a wooly jumper, perhaps milking a cow whilst playing the tin whistle? “Not that I know of, but, if that’s what it takes…”

Hmm, it’s hard to take Jessica Alba seriously when she’s so damn charming. And witty. And, well, you know, superhot. For her latest outing, ‘Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer’, Alba is back in her figure-hugging bodysuit alongside Chris Evans’ The Human Torch, Ioan Gruffudd’s Mr. Fantastic and Michael Chiklis’ The Thing. The expectations are hardly high, given that the original Marvel Comics adaptation was something of a bucket. An $87.5million bucket that managed to gross £329.5 at the box-office. And, thanks largely to the presence of Ms. Alba, quite a bit on DVD too. “I think that first movie was all of us finding our feet,” says Alba. “We’re a lot more confident this time out. We’re ready to have some fun because we believe in our characters, and we know that there’s an audience out there. I had a wonderful time on this movie, because we all just felt, hey, we’ve got to say thanks here to all the Fantastic Four fans who made the first movie such a massive hit. It makes you give that little bit more.”

Noted mime artist Doug Jones is the body whilst grumpy actor Laurence Fishburne is the voice of The Silver Surfer, one of Marvel Comics most popular creations. “The reaction to the trailer has been pretty amazing,” says Alba, “and a lot of that has to do with the way they’ve put the Silver Surfer up on screen. You need cool enemies to make these movies work, and they don’t come much cooler than The Silver Surfer.”

I mention to Alba that she’s beginning to sound like a commercial. “You’re right,” she nods. “Gotta watch myself. You talk about something long enough, and you slip into ad-speak. I’ll try and think of something original and shocking for you with my next few answers.”

Given just how hot Ms. Alba is right now, it’s not all that surprising to find that she’s got not one, not two, not three, but six movies coming out this year. ‘The Ten’ is an indie affair, ten stories, inspired by the ten commandments; ‘Bill’ is a comedy co-starring Timothy Olyphant and Aaron Eckhart; ‘Awake’ is a drama that has Alba as the young wife to Hayden Christensen, who’s paralyzed with “anesthetic awareness”; ‘The Eye’ is a remake of the Hong Kong horror hit, and ‘Good Luck, Chuck’ – co-starring the much-touted but hard-to-like Dane Cook - comes with the tagline, ‘There’s Something About Jessica’. Which pretty much says it all. The poster has Alba holding an ice-cream cone that’s just begun to overspill down onto her hand. It would make a great cover for one of those old Top Of The Pops albums. “Yeah, it is a little bit sexy, isn’t it,” says Alba, “but, hey, that’s what sells. It’s a really funny movie, and if we can get people into the theatre, then they’re going to like it, and tell their friends.”

Does Alba feel okay about being the sex that sells? “I’m okay with it once I’m in control,” she nods. “It’s the same for anyone. You want to look well, you want to dress up occasionally, but that doesn’t mean that you want to be reduced to some simple fantasy for someone, or become some kind of object in someone’s mind. If you’re asking me, though, am I okay with looking the way I look, absolutely. I’m very happy with the way that I look, but I’m also very aware of the fact that it’s not really what’s important about a person.”

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